Tasnim report says a large part of Iran's mobile phone price rises comes from higher global memory chip costs

A report by the Tasnim news agency, carried by Khabar Online on Saturday 1 August 2026 (10 Mordad 1405), attributes the rise in mobile phone prices in Iran more to higher global handset prices than to a fall in imports. According to the report, higher prices for key components, particularly storage memory, and rising production costs across the global supply chain have pushed prices up by as much as about 40 percent on some models.

The report says that heavy investment by technology companies in artificial intelligence, and the shift of part of semiconductor manufacturing capacity towards that field, has put additional pressure on the electronic component supply chain. It says the consequence in the global market has been a significant drop in handset sales compared with last year.

The same report says traders in Iran report no evidence of a broad shortage of handsets at the supply level in the middle of Mordad, with demand relatively subdued and stock of many models still obtainable. Government decisions on managing foreign currency resources and regulating imports in the second half of the Iranian year are described as the main variable for where this market goes next.