Higher prices for smartphones and laptops are coming later this year, the boss of Currys, Britain’s biggest electricals retailer, has warned, as the AI data center boom soaks up the world’s supply of memory chips.
Currys, a UK equivalent of Best Buy, sells laptops, phones, TVs, and appliances online and through hundreds of stores across the UK, Ireland, and the Nordic countries, generating about $12 billion in annual revenue.
That scale, and the buying power that comes with it, makes it a useful early-warning system for where consumer electronics prices are headed.
CEO Alex Baldock blamed AI and data centers for devouring the world’s silicon supply on an earnings call after the company reported its annual results.
“Less is left over for the likes of mobile phones and laptops, and that inevitably will cause availability challenges and some cost price inflation coming through later this year,” he said in a call after the results were released.
Baldock said it was too early to say how big the price rises would be, but that Currys would lean on its buying power as market leader to secure supplies and hold increases down.
“We’ve seen this coming for some time; we’ve made sure that we’ve brought forward, so we’ve got good security of supply in computing and mobile phones until at least September,” he said.
Currys is the latest company to sound the alarm about a shortage that has already pushed up prices on Apple products and Xbox consoles, a shortage that analysts expect to worsen before it improves.
Memory makers have been reallocating manufacturing capacity toward deep-pocketed AI hyperscalers like Meta, Google, and Amazon, leaving gadget makers fighting over what’s left.
Investors seem to have gotten the message: even as Currys reported an 18% jump in annual profit, its shares were down around 3% on the day.
