Another major phone brand signals incoming massive price hikes

Another day, another smartphone price hike. Ever-rising component prices are forcing smartphone manufacturers to raise the prices of their products, and now, after Apple, Google, and Samsung have done it, another big smartphone brand is following suit: Huawei.

Huawei announces massive price hikes for its newest smartphone models

Huawei's boss, Richard Yu, spoke before Chinese media, telling our colleagues that the expected price hikes will be "moderate". However, the price of the recently announced Huawei Mate 90 series came as a nasty surprise to most Huawei fans.

The Mate 90 starts at 5,999 yuan ($899) with 12GB of memory and 256GB of storage, while the Pro starts at 6,999 yuan ($1,049). The 16GB/512GB Pro Max costs 9,999 yuan, or about $1,499. The RS Ultimate Design runs from 12,999 yuan to 18,999 yuan for a 2TB version ($1,900–$2,800).

Prices compared to the previous generation

The Huawei Mate 80 series launched in China starting at 4,699 Chinese yuan for the base model, which translates to roughly $699. This $200 hike was in fact the prediction Richard Yu shared with Bloomberg, although I wouldn't say it's "moderate."

What's even more interesting is that Yu thinks the price hike is too modest to offset Huawei's losses, and that the company is taking a huge hit in profitability.