Qualcomm will raise prices on its Snapdragon mobile chips by double digits starting September 1, the company confirmed during its fiscal third-quarter earnings call on July 29.

Chief executive Cristiano Amon told analysts the move was unavoidable. “Cost went up, prices are going to go up,” he said, pointing to sustained pressure across the supply chain.

A letter sent to hardware partners, reported by Bloomberg, said Qualcomm could no longer absorb rising operational costs tied to supplier and component bottlenecks. The company cited broad-based increases in wafer fabrication, assembly, testing, packaging and memory as the main drivers.

Snapdragon chips power a large share of the world’s premium Android phones, including Samsung’s Galaxy S26 series, the OnePlus 15, Xiaomi 15 and Oppo’s Find X9 Ultra. A price increase at the chip level is expected to filter down to retail prices on those devices.

Industry reporting points to a double-digit percentage rise, though Qualcomm has not released a chip-by-chip breakdown of the new pricing. Analysts tracking the flagship Android market say the change could push some top-tier phones past the $1,000 mark for the first time in their respective lineups.

The increase lands at a sensitive moment for smartphone makers already managing tariff uncertainty and rising memory costs elsewhere in the supply chain. Phone makers now face a choice between absorbing the higher chip costs themselves or passing them on to buyers ahead of the holiday shopping season.

Qualcomm has not said whether the September 1 pricing applies uniformly across its full chip lineup or is weighted toward its highest-end Snapdragon 8-series processors, leaving device makers to plan for the change with limited detail so far.

The timing coincides with the run-up to several major flagship launches later this year, leaving brands with devices already in the pipeline little room to renegotiate before the new pricing kicks in. For most buyers, the change will likely surface gradually, in the specification and pricing decisions manufacturers make for phones launching after September 1 rather than in devices already on store shelves.