Xiaomi’s explanation for the Redmi K90 price hike doesn’t fully add up. In a recent Weibo post, company president Lu Weibing attributed the increase to surging storage costs, pointing to global supply chain trends and rising NAND prices. But when you look closely at current component pricing and Xiaomi’s own promotional discount, storage seems like a minor factor in the K90’s overall cost structure.
It’s true the memory market is tightening. Major NAND producers have reportedly cut output by roughly 10 to 15 percent in the first half of 2025, a move that typically pushes prices higher. Even so, recent DRAMeXchange figures put a 256Gb TLC UFS 4.1 flash storage unit at around $2 on average. That’s a far cry from the cost of the K90’s flagship processor: Qualcomm’s Snapdragon 8 Elite Gen 5 is estimated in the $240 to $280 range, and that major cost center also bundles memory-related expenses.
There’s another wrinkle. In the same Weibo post, Lu Weibing announced a 300 yuan discount for the K90’s most popular configuration—12GB + 512GB—bringing the first-month price to 2899 yuan. That single discount, roughly $42, is around six times the average unit cost of the flash storage cited above. If storage truly were the main driver behind the initial price jump, a promotional cut of that size would be hard to justify.
Xiaomi also diversifies its flash storage suppliers, which helps smooth out shocks from any one vendor. While cost pressures on a new flagship are real, the most plausible culprits are higher-ticket components and system-level choices—especially a premium SoC—rather than storage alone.
Key takeaways:
– Xiaomi points to rising storage costs to explain Redmi K90 pricing.
– NAND output cuts have tightened supply, but average UFS 4.1 flash pricing remains low relative to other components.
– The Snapdragon 8 Elite Gen 5 likely accounts for a significant share of the K90’s bill of materials.
– A 300 yuan launch-month discount on the 12GB + 512GB model undermines the argument that storage costs are the primary driver.
– With multiple storage vendors in its supply chain, Xiaomi is less exposed to sudden, supplier-specific price spikes.
Bottom line: Storage prices are trending upward, but they don’t appear substantial enough to justify the Redmi K90’s initial price increase on their own. The data—and Xiaomi’s own discount—suggest that the real cost pressures are elsewhere, most notably in the high-end processor. Note: This analysis differentiates between NAND and UFS 4.1 flash storage.
