Chip Shortage Sparks 20% Price Surge on Phones & PCs

The silicon squeeze is back—and this time it’s hitting your wallet harder than ever.

Global chip shortages, once thought to be easing, have roared back with a vengeance. Industry analysts now warn that consumers could face sticker shocks of up to 20 % on popular electronics, from everyday laptops to mid-range smartphones.

From factory floor to checkout line

Inside a sprawling assembly plant outside Ho Chi Minh City, production manager Linh Pham stares at half-finished motherboards. "We’re missing a $2 power-management chip," she says. "Without it, a $700 phone becomes scrap metal." The bottleneck is ricocheting through supply chains, pushing retailers to pass costs straight to shoppers.

"We’ve never seen scarcity this broad and persistent across both legacy and cutting-edge nodes," said IHS Markit semiconductor lead Brian Tang. "Consumers should brace for a 15–20 % price jump through the holiday season."

Why the crunch won’t quit

• Geopolitics: U.S.–China export curbs on advanced lithography equipment have stalled new fabs.
• Auto rebound: Car makers that slashed orders in 2020 are now soaking up mature-node capacity.
• AI gold rush: GPUs for generative AI are devouring 5 nm wafer supply, starving consumer chips.

What shoppers can do

Retailers report dwindling inventories of $300–$600 handsets and entry-level notebooks. Analysts suggest buying early or considering last-gen models that use older, more available silicon. Trade-in programs are also bulking up as carriers try to keep sticker prices palatable.

Road ahead

Chipmakers have pledged $200 billion in new capacity, yet most fabs won’t come online until 2025. Until then, consumers, manufacturers and investors will be playing a high-stakes waiting game—one where the price of admission keeps rising.