Google confirmed price increases across its entire Pixel lineup ahead of the Pixel 11 launch on Aug. 12, blaming a memory cost jump to $12 per gigabyte.
Key Points:
- Google will adjust prices across the whole Pixel family, including the Pixel 11 series arriving Aug. 12.
- An executive cited a sixfold rise in RAM costs, from $2.80 per gigabyte in 2025 to $12 this year.
- Leaked retail listings put the base Pixel 11 at $899, against $799 for the Pixel 10.
Pixel 11 Price Increase Confirmed
Shakil Barkat, Google's vice president of devices and services, told interviewers last week that the hardware division has been hit by what he called a severe, supplier-driven RAM memory crisis.
He said the company shielded buyers from supply swings for as long as it could, but that the underlying economics have fundamentally shifted. Adjustments will now roll out dynamically across the Pixel family.
Barkat pointed to Morgan Stanley research showing that a single gigabyte of RAM climbed from $2.80 in 2025 to $12 this year, a near sixfold move in about twelve months. Leaked retail listings peg the base Pixel 11 at $899, against $799 for the Pixel 10, with the Pro version reported near $1,099 and the Pro XL near $1,299.
Also Read: Kimi K3 Becomes The Largest Open-Weight Model Ever With 2.8 Trillion Parameters
RAM Shortage Reshapes Phone Pricing
The pressure does not originate at Google.
Memory makers have shifted wafer capacity toward the high-bandwidth chips that AI accelerators need, leaving conventional DRAM for phones and laptops in short supply.
SK Hynix chief executive Kwak Noh-jung warned this month that 2027 will be the industry's worst supply year on record, with customer demand running ahead of capacity past 2030.
Samsung has already raised prices across its Galaxy Z8 foldables.
Google is answering partly in software. Barkat described a dedicated effort to drive memory requirements down across Android and its app ecosystem, so that devices can ship with less RAM without feeling slower to use.
Pixel 11 Upgrade Cycle Looks Thin
Leaks suggest a quiet year for the phones themselves. Four models are expected, with designs, screen sizes and resolutions largely carried over from last year, alongside a Tensor G6 chip built on a 2nm process.
The base Pixel 11 and Pixel 11 Pro are also tipped to drop the 128GB tier and start at 256GB, which blunts some of the increase.
Google had held the entry Pixel at $799 through both the Pixel 9 and Pixel 10 generations, absorbing component costs rather than passing them on.
Barkat signaled that phones already on shelves, widely assumed to include the Pixel 10a, will have their prices revised upward as well.
Read Next: Bitget Expands UNICEF Skills Push To Bangladesh, Indonesia And Bolivia