Some Chinese smartphone manufacturers may skip on ‘Ultra’ smartphones next year. Well, at least according to a report by Ice Universe, a well-known tipster. You can probably already assume the reason for that, but let’s get to it.
Some Chinese OEMs may skip ‘Ultra’ smartphones next year due to memory prices
The tipster mentions profit concerns, and the main reason behind that is… the memory crisis. As many of you know, memory prices have gone through the roof due to AI demands, and that is affecting the prices of smartphones in general.
Chinese smartphone OEMs see their regular and ‘Pro’ series devices as mass-market devices. The ‘Pro’ phones are usually seen as flagship devices, while the ‘Ultra’ phones are essentially muscle-flexing camera flagships, as the source put it. They’ve never been about volume or mass appeal.
Ice Universe claims that due to memory prices, the Ultra phones’ positioning falters. There is no room for compromise when it comes to those phones, as the margins are already very thin. They need to use bleeding-edge camera sensors there to keep those phones ‘Ultra’, and the same goes for other components.
Raising prices would create a different problem
The companies could always raise prices, but that brings another set of problems for the ‘Ultra’ devices. They become less competitive, which likely means lower sales. Thus, a pause may be in order.
Ice Universe says that it would be a rational move to pause or shelve ‘Ultra’ development for now. He doesn’t seem to have specific info on that, but he did say that more than one company is currently in the process of discussing next moves.
Tech enthusiasts, we, are always quite interested in the bleeding edge, so it would be a shame to see such devices not appear in the next generation. Well, at least not some of them. We’ll see what comes next.
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