Dell, one of the largest PC manufacturers, has notified its staff internally that the firm is poised to implement a massive price hike across a variety of products, attributing it to DRAM shortages.
Dell Plans to Implement Price Hikes That Could Make Devices Unaffordable For Consumers
It appears that the memory shortages have now made their way to the 'mainstream' manufacturers in the PC supply chain, as according to a report from Business Insider, which spotted internal emails from Dell, it is disclosed that price hikes are expected across "commercial product lines", which include the company's laptop offerings, as well as pre-built PCs. The price hike is set to be one of the highest ones from the firm, as it is claimed that both laptops and PCs could get expensive by 'hundreds of dollars' moving ahead, and it isn't just limited to memory shortages, as getting higher storage would cost a lot more as well.
The report claims that by next week, Dell's latest Pro and Pro Max offerings, both laptops and PCs, will see a rise of up to $230, depending on the memory configuration. Additionally, if you opt for a 128 GB model, the cost could now be up to an additional $765 per device, representing a significant increase that comes as a surprise to consumers. Not only this, but if gamers intend to get extra storage onboard, that would also cost significantly more now. A Dell employee expects the price rise to increase by up to 30%, depending on the manufacturer's contract, which is by no means a small one.
Several products are anticipated to be affected by memory shortages, and Dell's new pricing chart, as seen by Business Insider, shows a price increase as follows:
- $130–$230 increase for Dell Pro and Pro Max notebooks and desktops configured with 32 GB of memory
- $520–$765 increase for systems configured with 128 GB of memory
- $55–$135 increase for configurations with a 1 TB SSD
- $150 increase for Dell Pro 55 Plus 4K Monitor
- $66 increase for AI laptops equipped with an NVIDIA RTX PRO 500 Blackwell GPU (6 GB)
- $530 increase for AI laptops equipped with an NVIDIA RTX PRO 500 Blackwell GPU (24 GB)
It's important to note that Dell is one of the largest PC manufacturers, which means that if the firm implements a widespread price increase, other firms in competition, such as Lenovo, Acer, ASUS, and many others, are likely to follow, which means that consumers are in for a difficult year ahead. And more importantly, memory shortages are unlikely to end anytime soon, with some estimates suggesting that they could persist until 2027, which means that supply will remain constrained for several quarters ahead.
AI has brought a challenging time for gamers, despite promising to make matters easier for humans, and it appears that affording a computing device could become a lot harder moving ahead.
About the author: Muhammad Zuhair is a hardware and technology reporter for Wccftech, specializing in the semiconductor industry and the complex interplay between technology, manufacturing, and geopolitics. His coverage focuses on the corporate strategies and technological roadmaps of industry giants like TSMC, NVIDIA, Samsung, and Intel. Zuhair's expertise lies in deconstructing complex topics such as fabrication nodes (e.g., 2nm process), the economic impact of policies like the CHIPS Act, and the strategic development of AI infrastructure from NVIDIA, AMD and Intel.
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