"Storage super cycle" sweeps over terminals from the cloud: Storage manufacturers profit immensely, Mac and Xbox forced to raise prices, Google Pixel phone cancels 128GB.

Some media reports have stated that the Alphabet Inc. Class C Pixel 11 AI smartphone, expected to be released at the end of this summer, will have a higher starting price and will no longer include the 128GB storage model. This latest move by Alphabet Inc. Class C is similar to the consumer electronics leader Apple Inc., which has switched its latest iPhone to a minimum 256GB storage configuration and has postponed the standard iPhone 18 to the first half of 2027. The company has also implemented global price increases for its Mac/iPad series consumer electronics products. Apple Inc. and Alphabet Inc. Class C can be seen as providing the most direct evidence of the transmission of upstream storage chip costs to the terminal. The "storage super cycle," sweeping through global financial markets, is dividing the tech industry: on one side, products like Microsoft Corporation's Xbox, Apple Inc.'s Mac/iPad, and Alphabet Inc. Class C Pixel are facing high cost pressures, while on the other side, the three largest scale storage chip manufacturers, Micron, SK Hynix, and Samsung Electronics, are enjoying historical pricing power and maintaining strong record performance. Microsoft Corporation confirmed earlier that starting from August 1st, the Xbox 512GB model will increase by $100, the 1TB model by $150, and the 2TB version will be phased out; the core explanation is that the price of the main storage and memory has increased by more than 2.5 times, and it is expected to double again by the fall of 2027. Apple Inc. is also unable to fully absorb the cost pressure, with Cook indicating that product prices will be increased due to the rise in memory and storage chip costs, and Axios further reported that MacBook and iPad prices will increase by 15%-25%. Alphabet Inc. Class C's decision to cancel the 128GB model and raise the price suggests that the scarcity of storage chips is changing the pricing logic for terminals. According to reports, Pixel 11 is scheduled to be released on August 20th. The Alphabet Inc. Class C Pixel launch event is planned to take place in New York at 6 p.m. on Wednesday, August 12th, Eastern Time. Pixel 11 will likely be an upgraded version of the AI smartphone created by Alphabet Inc. Class C, continuing the product line of the Pixel series with "Tensor chip + Gemini + edge AI." Alphabet Inc. Class C has already made AI a core selling point for Pixel 10, with Tensor G5 bringing the latest AI capabilities, Gemini Nano edge operation, Magic Cue, real-time call translation, and Gemini Live visual assist, among other features. Therefore, if Pixel 11 upgrades Tensor and Gemini capabilities as usual, it will essentially be the next generation of AI smartphones. Edge AI not only requires stronger NPU/TPU and larger operating memory, but also increases the demand for local storage: model weights, photo/video generation and editing caches, voice transcriptions, screen context indexing, private data retrieval, offline translation, and multimodal materials all make 128GB more like a "capacity bottleneck." Therefore, from the perspective of smartphone manufacturers, the elimination of lower storage versions can also increase the average selling price (ASP), making price increases packaged as "capacity upgrades" more easily accepted by the market. The cycle of "silicon-based inflation," led by companies like Micron, is forcing terminal hardware like Pixel, Xbox, and Mac to foot the bill for AI. TrendForce's compiled statistics and forecast data reveal the structural strength of the storage chip price increase wave driven by the AI infrastructure craze: in the first quarter of 2026, traditional DRAM contract prices increased by about 93%-98%, leading to an 81% increase in industry revenue to $97 billion; the agency also predicts that in the second quarter of 2026, traditional DRAM contract prices will rise by 58%-63%, and NAND Flash contract prices will rise by 70%-75%; in the third quarter of 2026, traditional DRAM product contract prices are expected to rise by 13%-18% on record bases, and NAND flash contract prices may rise by 10%-15%, with storage component suppliers continuously reallocating capacity to AI server-related computing clusters, and more NAND capacity being allocated to enterprise SSD demands related to data center construction. In other words, the tech industry is not facing a simple shortage, but rather AI cloud vendors are systematically squeezing consumer electronics supply priorities with long-term orders, prepayments, price floors, and capacity locks. For companies like Microsoft Corporation, Apple Inc., Valve, Sony, Nintendo, and Alphabet Inc. Class C smartphone brands, the pressure lies in the increase of BOM costs, margin pressures, and reduced demand elasticity due to terminal price increases; for large cloud companies like Amazon.com, Inc. and Alphabet Inc. Class C, the pressure lies in the expansion of AI capital expenditures from "purchasing NVIDIA Corporation GPUs" to "pre-purchasing HBM, DDR5, enterprise SSDs, data center power equipment, high-performance network infrastructure, and data center optical interconnection components" in a full-stack AI computing scarcity situation. This also presents a rare historical growth opportunity for the three major storage chip manufacturers, Micron, SK Hynix, and Samsung Electronics, who are trying to transform the highly cyclical storage industry into a more cyclic commercial model closer to AI infrastructure "quasi-utility + high barrier to entry."