Credit: Google Google raised the Pixel 10a from $499 to $599 seven months after launch, with no change to the phone, blaming memory costs that its own vice president said had risen from $2.80 per gigabyte to $12. Apple and Samsung have both repriced existing phones in the past month, and Google has not said whether European prices follow. Google has raised the price of the Pixel 10a by $100 to $599, seven months after putting it on sale. The phone has not changed.
Google has not said whether European prices follow. The 128GB model went from $499 to $599 and the 256GB version now costs $699, as 9to5Google reported first. The new prices are showing on the Google Store, Amazon and Best Buy. Google did not respond to a request for comment.
The 10a runs a Tensor G4, two generations behind the silicon in the Pixel 11. It arrived in March with limited improvements on the Pixel 9a. Memory is the reason, and Google has already said so itself. A company vice president, Shakil Barkat, said in July that RAM had gone from $2.80 per gigabyte to $12, citing Morgan Stanley.
The Pixel 11 launched in August at $899, a hundred dollars above the Pixel 10. Apple moved first on phones already in shops. It raised prices across older iPhones last month, alongside the iPhone 18 Pro. Samsung then lifted prices by $100 across most of the Galaxy S26 range this week.
The practice has spread from new launches to stock on the shelf. Europe has not been told what happens next. Currys said in July that its stockpile gave it supply security until at least September, and that phones, laptops and televisions would cost more after that. Alex Baldock, then its chief executive, declined to give a figure.
October has arrived. The retailer sells across the UK, Ireland and the Nordics, and has not announced a rise. Memory now accounts for as much as half the parts cost of a budget Android phone, against about 15% before the shortage. DDR5 prices in Germany rose 414% in a year.
Google is also cutting memory rather than buying it. The Pixel 11 Pro dropped from 16GB to 12GB at the 256GB tier, and the company is reworking Android to need less. Nothing cancelled a budget phone in June rather than ship one that was not a step forward. A $599 Pixel on a two-year-old chip is the other way of answering the same problem.
