On November 13, DJI posted a notice on its website titled “Statement on Adjustments to Suggested Retail Prices for Certain DJI Products,” announcing that it would revise the suggested retail prices of some products from midnight on November 18, 2026. The brief notice gave just one reason: the continued sharp rise in the cost of semiconductors, memory, and other key components worldwide.

It did not say which products would be affected or how much prices would rise.

The notice itself was minor, but it marked the first time that cost pressure building across the upstream and midstream supply chain for more than six months had reached retail price tags.

The Notice Gives a Date, but No Models

The statement disclosed only three things: the reason, the date, and that “specific models and prices are subject to the product detail pages on DJI’s official online store.” There was no list, no indication of the size of the increase, and no definition of what counted as “certain products.”

Six months earlier, the situation was reversed. On June 28, a purported DJI notice circulated on social media claiming that prices across the company’s entire product lineup would rise by 3% to 8% from July 15. It even listed specific increases for models including the Pocket 3, Pocket 4, Action 6, and Air 3S. DJI later told several media outlets that the notice was fabricated, the information was false, and the company had no such price-adjustment plan.

Four months later, the same thing happened through an official announcement.

What changed was not DJI’s position, but conditions upstream during those four months.

The timeline of the rumors is also telling. Starting November 6, users posted on online platforms that the Pocket 4, 4P, and Nano would be repriced on November 18. On November 10, Blue Whale News reported claims from authorized stores in several regions that prices could rise by as much as 13%, or 500 yuan per unit. Jiemian News contacted JD.com’s self-operated flagship store while posing as a customer and was told by customer service that no price-increase notice had been received. It was not until November 13 that DJI confirmed in its own words that prices would rise, while still declining to say by how much.

For a company that had debunked a similar rumor just four months earlier, that restraint is telling. The increase may vary by model, or the final figures may not yet have been settled.

One more detail stands out: throughout the Singles’ Day sales period, the Pocket 4 series remained at its launch price on DJI’s official store and major e-commerce platforms, with promotions limited to interest-free installments and free gifts. Announcing the increase at the end of the sales campaign and putting it into effect five days later effectively gave distributors time to clear inventory and replace price tags. Current listed prices are 2,999 yuan for the standard Pocket 4 package, 3,799 yuan for the standard Pocket 4P package, and 1,998 yuan for the 64GB Osmo Nano.

The Same Cost, Reflected in Another Set of Accounts

DJI’s announcement points to the cause. Insta360’s third-quarter report, released on October 27, offered the clearest picture of the effect.

Revenue for the first three quarters reached 9.436 billion yuan, up 42.73% year on year. Net profit attributable to shareholders fell 93.96% to 48 million yuan, while adjusted net profit excluding nonrecurring items dropped 99.31% to 5 million yuan. In the third quarter alone, revenue rose 33.30% to 3.919 billion yuan, while attributable net profit fell 93.59% to 17 million yuan.

Revenue rose by more than 40% while profit nearly disappeared, with the difference showing up in gross margin. Third-quarter gross margin was 33.70%, down 13.95 percentage points year on year and another 4.64 percentage points from the previous quarter. For the first three quarters, it was 38.21%, down 11.42 percentage points year on year. Brokerage research reports cited two causes: rising prices for memory components and intensifying competition in the imaging industry.

One point remains unresolved. Neither the company nor the research reports quantified how much each factor contributed. Public disclosures therefore offer no answer to how much gross margin was consumed by higher memory costs. The direction is clear, but the scale is not.

The balance sheet is even more revealing. Inventory stood at 7.154 billion yuan at the end of the third quarter, up 231.7% from 2.157 billion yuan a year earlier. Net cash flow from operating activities was negative 4.264 billion yuan for the first three quarters, compared with positive 930 million yuan a year earlier.

Stockpiling has two sides. On one hand, it was proactive: the company said it had purchased core components in advance to secure supply-chain stability, building reserves that could support operations for an extended period. On the other hand, it came at a cost: more than 7 billion yuan of inventory sitting in warehouses and over 4 billion yuan in cash outflows. In effect, the company is using today’s cash to lock in tomorrow’s costs. If memory prices fall in 2027 as institutions expect, that high-cost inventory will become a burden. If prices keep rising, it will become a moat.

This is the choice downstream manufacturers face. Without stockpiling, they risk supply disruptions; with it, they risk being trapped with expensive inventory. There is no third option.

What AI Bought Was Capacity, Not Memory

To understand why this round of price increases has reached cameras, it is necessary to see where upstream production capacity has gone.

According to Counterpoint, global memory prices rose 80% to 90% quarter on quarter in the first quarter of 2026, the largest increase on record. Memory’s share of a smartphone’s bill of materials climbed from 10% to 15% previously to more than 20%. On November 11, the firm released an even more striking figure: memory’s share of the cost of an entry-level smartphone rose from 20% in the third quarter of last year to 54%.

The same data set included two other figures. The average global retail price of smartphones rose 20% this year, while worldwide shipments fell 20% year on year in the third quarter, marking the weakest third quarter in 14 years.

Prices rose 20% and sales fell 20%. This is what demand looks like when higher prices suppress it.

The cause lies outside consumer electronics itself. Samsung and SK Hynix have shifted capacity toward HBM and server DRAM, leaving fewer wafers for general-purpose memory. Meanwhile, industrywide capital spending contracted during the downturn from 2023 to 2025. A Counterpoint research director said it takes at least two years for investment to translate into operating capacity. New capacity will not begin coming online until the second half of 2027, and most new investment over the next several years will remain focused on data centers.

The result is a mismatch. AI data centers are buying HBM and server DRAM, while consumer electronics use general-purpose DRAM and NAND. The products do not come from the same production lines, but they compete for the same pool of wafers and the same factory-expansion budgets. When capacity shifts, general-purpose memory becomes scarce. When that happens, cameras, smartphones, and PCs all become more expensive.

It is no exaggeration to say that consumer electronics companies are paying for something they do not use. That is the consequence of how capacity has been allocated.

Memory Markets Are Already Diverging Before the Fourth Quarter Ends

If the story were simply about prices rising, there would be no second act.

A Bank of America Merrill Lynch report on November 13 pointed in the opposite direction. According to a summary by Gelonghui, the report found that NAND spot prices had already fallen more than 20% since mid-to-late October. It forecast that average NAND selling prices would decline by a low-single-digit percentage quarter on quarter in the first quarter of next year, compared with the market consensus for an increase of about 10%. Its DRAM forecast was unchanged: prices would rise 8% quarter on quarter in the fourth quarter and another 5% in the first quarter of next year.

The report cited weekly pricing data. Spot prices for 512Gb NAND fell more than 10% in one week, while 1Tb prices dropped by a mid-single-digit percentage. NAND wafer spot prices fell 13% in October and another 15% in the first half of November. On the DRAM side, 16Gb DDR5 spot prices remained near $60 after reaching a record of about $61 in late October. Spot prices for 8Gb DDR4 hit a new high of $47 in the first half of November before pulling back slightly.

The divergence stems not from demand, but from the structure of production lines. The report made one crucial point: older fabs, which account for 20% to 30% of global wafer capacity, are not suited to producing high-end NAND or enterprise SSDs and can only continue making consumer-grade NAND. That capacity cannot easily exit the market, so prices there have softened first. DRAM is different: capacity can be shifted to HBM, which will only tighten the supply of general-purpose DRAM.

This means “rising memory prices” is not a single, uniform trend. The impact on downstream manufacturers could split into two tracks next year: pressure may ease for products that use more NAND, while products that rely more heavily on DRAM will have to hold out longer. Both types of chips are found in the same devices.

Four Steps From Wafer Prices to Retail Price Tags

Between a wafer and a retail price tag lie four layers: contract prices, module quotes, the device bill of materials, and the suggested retail price.

TrendForce forecasts that fourth-quarter contract prices will rise 10% to 15% quarter on quarter for conventional DRAM and 15% to 20% for NAND. PC DRAM is expected to increase even more, by 13% to 18%. DRAMeXchange’s monthly data shows that the average contract price of 8Gb DDR4 reached $27.50 in October, up 5.77% from $26 in September.

Contract prices are negotiated quarterly, but the prices paid by module and device manufacturers often track the spot market and short-term contracts. This lag explains why memory prices surged 80% to 90% in the first quarter of 2026, while retail prices did not begin moving until the end of the year.

The list of companies that have already raised prices is taking shape. In April, Xiaomi said that because of sharp increases in the global prices of memory chips and other key components, it would adjust the suggested retail prices of three models already on sale, the REDMI K90 Pro Max, REDMI Turbo 5, and Turbo 5 Max, from midnight on April 11. OPPO and vivo had already made price adjustments before that. With DJI now joining them, price increases have spread from smartphones to imaging devices.

Downstream manufacturers are also trying to protect themselves. TrendForce said reballed memory, in which removed chips are fitted with new solder balls and reused, accounts for 3% to 4% of the smartphone market this year and could reach 7% to 9% by 2027. Most of it is 4GB LPDDR4X used in 4G phones priced below 1,299 yuan. The signal is clear: once new memory chips become expensive enough, a market emerges for recycled parts. That may ease costs, but it also creates reliability risks.