Smartphone prices have not just risen on new launches this year. The phone that was sitting on a shelf at one price in January is, on average, 15% more expensive now. That is the headline finding of Counterpoint Research’s Global Smartphone Price Increase Tracker, published on September 3, 2026. Over 40% of smartphone models on sale have taken a price hike so far in 2026, which Counterpoint calls a first for the industry.
New phones are climbing faster still. Counterpoint puts new launches at 25% costlier than the equivalent model from a year earlier. Some individual models have nearly doubled in price. The study draws on the firm’s repository of more than 4,000 active handset models.
Smartphone price increases hit India hardest, the US least
The pain is not spread evenly. India saw the steepest rise at 21%, followed by Asia Pacific at 19% and the Middle East and Africa at 18%. Latin America came next at 16%, where thinner promotional discounting pushed effective prices up. Markets with more premium buyers fared better: China rose 10%, Europe 7% and the US just 5%.
Counterpoint’s explanation for the gap is straightforward. Budget and mid-range phones carry most of the volume in the harder-hit markets. There is no margin cushion in a phone at that price, so component cost increases go straight onto the sticker. In the US and Europe, the increases landed mostly on new launches rather than on existing stock.
There is a second reason US buyers feel less of this. Most American customers buy on postpaid plans, where the handset cost is spread across monthly payments. A higher upfront price is easier to miss when it arrives as a few extra dollars a month for two years. That does not make the phone cheaper. It just makes the increase harder to see.
The bigger story: memory prices
The driver behind all of this is memory. Counterpoint says memory prices have risen fourfold since the fourth quarter of 2025. That is a component every phone needs, in a market where OEMs have limited ability to renegotiate.
Memory has become a key driver of smartphone BoM costs, resetting pricing across the industry and leaving OEMs with limited room to absorb higher costs. The impact is most acute in price-sensitive markets, where average price increases of 16%-21% are making devices less affordable.
That is Tarun Pathak, Research Director at Counterpoint Research, in the firm’s own release. Counterpoint also notes that Apple has continued to hold iPhone prices steady through this, which is a notable choice given the iPhone accounts for more than half of Apple’s revenue.
What OEMs are cutting to hold the line
This is the part worth reading closely before your next purchase. Counterpoint says manufacturers are optimising specifications to manage costs. In plain terms, that means three things: lower storage capacities, reduced camera configurations and the reintroduction of 4G models in select price segments.
None of those will be marketed as a downgrade. A phone that ships with 128GB where last year’s model had 256GB will be sold as the same phone at a similar price. A dropped third rear camera becomes a streamlined camera system. A 4G model at an attractive price is a phone you will still own in 2029, on a network standard carriers are already winding down in some markets. The price on the box may look flat. What you get for it is not.
Our own read: the storage cut is the one to watch hardest. Storage is the spec buyers are least equipped to compare across generations, and it is the one that determines whether a phone is still usable three years in. If you are shopping this year, check the base storage tier against last year’s model of the same name, not against the price.
What happens next
Counterpoint expects prices to keep rising over the coming quarters, with memory shortages and elevated component costs persisting in the near term. The firm expects OEMs to prioritise high-end models to protect margins, while using specification and storage changes to limit increases in price-sensitive markets. It also expects the upcoming iPhone 18 series to be caught in the same squeeze.
Buyers are already adapting. Counterpoint reports consumers delaying upgrades, choosing lower-storage models, timing purchases around big sales events and moving to refurbished devices. Financing and trade-in offers are softening the blow in premium-heavy markets. In India and other price-sensitive markets, there is less to soften it with. The effect is already visible in individual launches, such as the vivo T5 5G arriving in India at Rs 34,999.
