Fewer festive bargains for smartphone buyers as memory chip costs soar

Summary

The current prices are a sharp departure from the steep festive discounts Indian smartphone buyers had come to expect until last year.

New Delhi: Late on 10 October, Amazon said sales of premium Android phones had risen 70% year-on-year in the first two days of its Great Indian Festival sale. But the upbeat sales figure masked a rare reversal of the deep discounts typically seen during festive sales.

Apple's iPhone 17 is selling on Flipkart for ₹86,999, above its September 2025 launch price of ₹82,900. While below its revised maximum retail price of ₹99,900, the current price offers little of the steep festive discounting that Indian smartphone buyers had come to expect until 2025.

The trend extends beyond iPhones. Discounts on smartphones, laptops and other electronics remain limited, a sharp departure from the deep festive-season price cuts on older devices in previous years.

This year, high memory chip costs have constrained manufacturers, threatening to dampen demand during a season that accounts for nearly 30% of India's annual electronics sales, according to data from market researchers International Data Corp. (IDC) and Counterpoint Research.

That's not all, though. Some brands even raised prices on select products between 11 and 12 October, according to data shared with Mint by industry body All India Mobile Retailers Association (AIMRA).

Emails sent by Samsung and Realme to brick-and-mortar stores showed that while the South Korean electronics makers increased prices of two mid-range phones by 5%, the Chinese consumer electronics manufacturer hiked prices of three smartphone models by up to 13%.

"The onset of the festive period is when consumers step out with high expectations to purchase or upgrade their devices. Taking such decisions at this crucial starting juncture directly hurts consumer sentiment, causing buyers to strongly refrain from purchasing at these inflated price points," said Kailash Lakhyani, president at AIMRA.

Industry groups, retailers and independent analysts who spoke to Mint maintained their projections of a weak October-December quarter for phone and laptop sales in India. The country's smartphone market could see a double-digit decline in sales during the period, they predicted.

"The current market is anything but a buyer's paradise, and barring a few odd stock clearance deals that may be chanced upon, most deals this year have been marred by high input costs due to the pricey memory chips," said Tarun Pathak, director of research at Counterpoint India.

The rare reversal

Samsung's 2025 flagship, the Galaxy S25, has been available on e-commerce platforms at discounts of 20-25%. Google's year-old Pixel 10, launched in August 2025 at ₹79,999, was selling at a 12% discount at the time of writing.

These offers fall well short of the discounts of up to 40% off launch prices seen in previous festive seasons. According to market observers, the shift could have significant implications for the smartphone market, which generates at least $43 billion in annual retail revenue.

Festive sales played a pivotal role in electronics sales, as time-limited deals drove most purchases during this period, said Faisal Kawoosa, founder and chief analyst at market researcher TechArc.

"Throughout this year, companies repeatedly ran campaigns urging customers to make their purchases earlier to tackle a weak market. Now, with no special prices and deals, the market is facing an unprecedented decline," he added.

Pathak, too, reaffirmed that the high prices are "not really a surprise."

"With memory chip costs impacting margins for brands, we now expect India's first three days of festive season sales to decline by 16% in volume -- and by single digits in value as well. This has been the worst festive season opening in five years," he said.

Mint's queries emailed to Apple, Google, Samsung and Realme remained unanswered.

Muted season

Brick-and-mortar retailers reported a similar trend. Manish Khatri, partner at Mumbai-based electronics retailer Mahesh Telecom, said store footfall no longer rose in tandem with major e-commerce sales, as it typically did in previous years.

"The higher prices now mean that even buyers who used to regularly upgrade have refrained. Some of the best sales in previous festive seasons were of premium phones and flagships. Now, with very few discounts being offered, there's hardly any difference between the regular prices, and the ones now," Khatri added.

For now, projections indicate smartphone sales in the country will fall by over 15% through the 2026 calendar year. In September, IDC projected India's smartphone market to sell 125 million units this year, down from 152 million in 2025.

With festive sales failing to offer enticing discounts, despite claims of strong demand from e-commerce platforms, the ground reality could be quite different.