Smartphone chipmaker Qualcomm has informed customers it will raise prices by a double-digit percentage due to rising costs, according to a Bloomberg News report citing a letter sent to clients. The company sent the letter to customers on Friday, informing them that the price increase would take effect for products shipped after September 1.
According to the report, Qualcomm told customers it could no longer absorb rising costs from its suppliers and had attempted to source alternative components from new suppliers before deciding to pass the increase on to clients. Qualcomm declined to comment on the report, and Reuters said it could not independently verify the details. The exact scope of the increase remains unclear, with separate reporting citing a letter obtained from a distributor indicating the price adjustment covers the company’s product portfolio broadly rather than naming specific chips or a uniform rate across all customers.
The move comes as Qualcomm, the world’s largest supplier of smartphone processors, grapples with mounting pressure across the broader technology supply chain. The smartphone chip market has been squeezed by an ongoing memory chip shortage, as investment across the semiconductor industry has increasingly been redirected toward AI infrastructure buildouts. This broader supply crunch has affected everything from smartphones to supercomputers to vehicles, with a surge in AI data center construction placing sustained strain on production of memory chips and other semiconductor components.
Qualcomm is scheduled to report its third-quarter earnings results on July 29, which will offer further insight into how rising supplier costs and component shortages are affecting the company’s margins and broader business outlook. The price increase, if confirmed, would likely have downstream implications for device manufacturers relying on Qualcomm’s chips, potentially influencing retail pricing across the smartphone market as component costs continue to climb amid the industry wide supply constraints tied to the AI driven semiconductor demand surge.
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