RAMageddon's latest victim is Amazon, which has raised prices across its hardware lineup over the weekend, hitting Kindles, Echo smart speakers, Fire TV sticks, and Eero routers with increases of up to 60%. The company confirmed the hikes to multiple outlets, pointing to the now-familiar culprit: rising memory and storage component costs.
"The consumer electronics industry is facing significant increases in memory and storage component costs," an Amazon spokesperson said. "After absorbing these increases for as long as we could, we recently adjusted pricing across our product lines."
The Echo Dot took the biggest hit in percentage terms, jumping from $49.99 to $79.99, a 60% increase overnight on one of Amazon's cheapest entry points into the smart home ecosystem. The Echo Show 21 saw the largest absolute dollar increase, up $100 to $500. Fire TV sticks didn't escape either, with the 4K Max jumping from $60 to $85.
Kindles are up across the board by about 28%, with the base model climbing from $110 to $150. The one notable exception is the premium Kindle Scribe lineup, which was left untouched, possibly because those devices already command higher margins. Ring doorbells and the Echo Studio were also spared.
For Kindle readers, it's one piece of bad news after another. Amazon recently bricked a range of pre-2012 Kindle models by dropping software support, effectively nudging those users toward an upgrade. They are now upgrading to newer devices that cost significantly more than they did just a few months ago.
Amazon now joins the likes of Roku, which raised prices by up to 60% last month. Apple hiked prices on the HomePod Mini and most of its non-iPhone lineup earlier this year, while NVIDIA is reportedly planning to raise AI server prices by more than 15%. As the memory shortage is expected to remain tight through 2027 before prices stabilise around 2028, this is likely not the last round of increases consumers will see before things settle.
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Amazon says it will offer promotions over the next year to help soften the impact.
