The search giant has increased the Pixel 10a's price tag from $499 to $599, marking a significant jump for a device that debuted in March and has received no upgrades since. The 128GB variant now carries the higher price, while the 256GB model has climbed to $699. Both Amazon and the Google Store are displaying the new figures, though the company declined to explain the decision when contacted.
Memory costs are behind the move. Shakil Barkat, a vice president at Google, disclosed in July that RAM expenses had surged from $2.80 per gigabyte to $12, citing Morgan Stanley data. This shift has reshaped the economics of smartphone manufacturing across the board.
The Pixel 10a runs the Tensor G4 processor, which lags two generations behind the chip powering the Pixel 11. That flagship device launched in August at $899, a $100 premium over the previous generation. The budget model arrived with only incremental improvements over its predecessor, the Pixel 9a.
Google is not alone in adjusting prices for older inventory. Apple repriced its existing iPhone lineup last month alongside the iPhone 18 Pro launch. Samsung followed suit this week, raising prices by $100 across most Galaxy S26 models. What was once a strategy limited to new product launches has now extended to phones already sitting on retail shelves.
European retailers and consumers remain in the dark about what comes next. Currys, which operates across the UK, Ireland and the Nordic region, stated in July that its existing stock would provide supply security through at least September, with price increases expected afterward. The retailer's then-chief executive, Alex Baldock, refused to specify the magnitude of those increases. October has now arrived, yet no announcement has materialized.
The scale of memory's impact on device costs cannot be overstated. For budget Android phones, memory now represents as much as half of total component expenses, compared to roughly 15% before the shortage began. In Germany alone, DDR5 prices climbed 414% over the course of a year.
Rather than absorb these costs through purchasing, Google is pursuing alternative strategies. The Pixel 11 Pro saw its memory allocation reduced from 16GB to 12GB at the 256GB storage tier. The company is simultaneously reworking Android to demand less memory from devices. Nothing took a different path in June, choosing to cancel its budget phone entirely rather than launch a model that failed to represent a meaningful step forward. Google's approach—pricing a two-year-old processor at $599—represents another answer to the same challenge.
Source: The Next Web
