AI-led phone price hikes persist, hitting Indian customers

As smartphone prices increase due to a glut in demand for memory chips by AI companies and data centres, phone retailers have seen their customer base in India dry up in a significant way. “This is the first time I’m seeing phone prices increase, and continue increasing relentlessly, in the last twenty years,” Vivek Singh, 42, a phone retailer in South Delhi who has been in the business for decades, said at his shop. “I have ten or fifteen people coming into the shop each day, and only one or two buy a phone,” he said.