If you’re looking to buy an Android smartphone next year, there’s a good chance it will get considerably more expensive. It has everything to do with the processor.
Buying a new smartphone will cost you quite a bit of money. Especially for the flagships, you easily put down more than a thousand euros. That goes for both an iPhone and an Android device.
The latter category will get a bit more expensive in 2025, and that’s because of the processor inside the device. Maker Qualcomm appears to be raising the price for its future SnapDragon 8 Gen 4 “significantly” over the recent version.
Why Android smartphones may get more expensive in 2025
Qualcomm is one of the largest producers of chips for Android phones. As such, many of the flagships from Android smartphone makers run on the SnapDragon 8 Gen 3. So with a price increase of that chip, it also immediately means that many Android smartphones will become more expensive.
The SnapDragon 8 Gen 4 will become more expensive, according to a post on China’s Weibo (via Digital Trends). How much is “significant” is not known at this time, but according to the site, it would not be surprising if it is between 10 and 20 percent.
The OnePlus 12. (Image: Mark Hofman / WANT)
Still, it’s not weird, as Qualcomm increased the price of the SnapDragon 8 Gen 3 over the 8 Gen 2 by 25 percent. Still, not every Android maker passed that price on to consumers. For example, the OnePlus 12 and Samsung Galaxy S24 and S24+ were not much more expensive. However, the same cannot be said for the Samsung Galaxy S24 Ultra, which actually became more expensive.
The reason the SnapDragon 8 Gen 4 may get more expensive
Of course, one of the reasons is inflation, but there seems to be something else at play as well. TSMC, which produces the chips, now uses a 3nm process. This process is more complicated but does make for more powerful and economical chips, since it allows more transistors on a chip. TSMC already makes those chips for Apple.
How a possible SnapDragon 8 Gen 4 price increase will really affect Android smartphones, we won’t know until October. That’s when Qualcomm’s new chip will be launched. And then it may also be up to two months before smartphones with the chipset are produced.
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