(Credit: Iyaz Akhtar)
If you bought a Moto G smartphone last week, consider yourself lucky. As spotted by Phone Arena, Motorola raised the prices of three Moto G models over the last couple of days.
On Motorola.com, the Moto G Play, the cheapest handset in the brand’s lineup, has jumped from $179.99 at launch to $249.99, almost 40% higher. The standard Moto G suffered the largest price hike, up 50% to $299.99. The Moto G Power is also seeing a $100 price hike, taking it from $299.99 to $399.99. All three phones are still available at their original prices on Amazon, however.
The newly announced Moto G Stylus for 2026, first revealed on Tuesday, also saw a $100 price hike compared with the last-gen model, taking it to $499.99.
Motorola has yet to comment on its latest price changes. It's not a huge surprise that it's charging more for its latest G Stylus device, since it's a brand-new product, but the three existing Motorola phones have been on sale for months, and no warning of a change was given.
Without Motorola sharing its reasoning, many assume it's due to the ongoing global storage crisis, which has driven up the cost of making consumer technology over the past year.
Smartphones, tablets, laptops, games consoles, and more are seeing price hikes due to rising costs for RAM and storage components. It's especially hitting cheaper devices, such as budget smartphones, as profit margins are already slim to begin with, making it difficult for each brand to absorb cost increases.
In January, Nothing CEO Carl Pei said its rivals may raise prices by more than 30% due to rising memory costs. “Memory is fast becoming one of the most expensive smartphone components and potentially the single largest cost driver in the bill of materials by year-end, with estimates suggesting that memory modules which cost less than $20 a year ago could exceed $100 by year-end for top-tier models," he said.
The global RAM and storage crisis shows no signs of slowing down, with some analysts predicting it won’t end until late 2027. Some suppliers have suggested it may even continue through to 2030.