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RAMageddon Strikes Again: Amazon Raises Its Electronics Prices by Up to 60%

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Why This Matters

The recent price hikes by Amazon on popular electronics highlight the ongoing impact of the global supply chain disruptions, particularly the shortage of memory and storage components. This development signals increased costs for consumers and could influence the affordability and accessibility of entry-level smart devices and electronics in the tech industry.

Key Takeaways

Talk about sticker shock. Amazon just raised the prices of some of its most popular electronics — including Kindles, Echos, Fire TVs and more — by up to 60%.

You can thank the so-called RAMageddon for the across-the-board hikes, according to a company spokesperson, who blamed the rising prices on “significant increases in memory and storage component costs.”

The hardware component shortage isn’t new. The AI industry has been gobbling up the world’s supply of memory and storage for more than a year now, hacking away at the budget laptop and smartphone industries as tech companies scramble to allocate the remaining resources in the supply chains.

Now the buck is being passed to consumers buying e-readers, smart home products and more. Amazon’s largest price hikes affected its most inexpensive electronics, making entry-level products less affordable. The Echo Dot smart speaker jumped from $50 to $80, representing a startling 60% price increase. Other base-level products, such as the starter Kindle and Fire TV Stick HD, saw price hikes of 36% and 14%, respectively.

Read more: Best Smart Home Devices of 2026: Everyday Upgrades

An Amazon spokesperson told CNET that the company is still trying to figure out more accessible pricing, but that increases were needed to account for hardware costs. “After absorbing these increases for as long as we could, we recently adjusted pricing across our product lines,” the spokesperson said.

Conspicuously missing from the recent round of price hikes were Amazon’s Ring doorbell cameras. The $220 Echo Studio smart speaker was also spared from a price increase, though almost every other Echo product saw a hike of between 10% and 60%.

Amazon is far from the only company raising prices in response to the supply chain squeeze. Gamers have been brutalized by back-to-back console price increases and an ugly Steam Machine starting price. Folks looking for a new laptop have been routinely pummeled year-round.

Other smart home companies have struggled to keep up with rising component costs, too — which means consumers are besieged on all sides by rising consumer tech prices. Roku, a direct competitor to Amazon’s Fire TV streaming products, raised its prices by up to 60% just last month. Apple recently raised the price of its HomePod Mini smart speaker by 30%, and there are likely more price hikes on the way.

Here’s a full list of Amazon’s recent electronics price increases, by product type: