Google Confirms Higher Pixel 11 Prices Driven By Sixfold Surge In Memory Costs

If you were planning to upgrade to a Pixel 11 next month, prepare to pay more for it than what you might expect. Shakil Barkat, Google’s Vice President of Devices and Services, confirmed in an interview with 9to5Google that price hikes are coming, driven by an unprecedented surge in memory costs across the semiconductor industry.

The comments come just days after Adata chairman Chen Li-bai warned that the memory crisis is a lot worse than many people think, and mere weeks before the scheduled Made by Google hardware event, which will see the unveiling of the Pixel 11 series (and likely other products) on August 12, 2026.

As Barkat tells it, Google absorbed volatile supply chain costs for as long as it could, but it has become increasingly difficult to shield consumers from the soaring price of mobile DRAM. It's the same dilemma that Apple faced, which came to the same conclusion—it had to raise prices on a plethora of hardware, including its budget-focused MacBook Neo.

"There's never been an increase in memory prices like the world's going through right now," Barkat said.

Barkat leaned on industry data from Morgan Stanley highlighting the severity of the situation, with the cost of smartphone memory chips skyrocketing by as much as sixfold over the last year.

The Google exec noted that pricing "adjustments" will roll out dynamically as the market dictates the pace. While he did not get into specific pricing, recent leaks suggest that the base Pixel 11 will likely start at $899, which is a $100 bump over the Pixel 10's $799 launch price, while the Pixel 11 Pro is expected to start at $1,099 compared to the Pixel 10 Pro's $999 launch price.

Barkat also warned that these adjustments won't be limited strictly to unreleased devices; existing mid-range hardware like the $499 Pixel 10a could eventually see mid-cycle price adjustments too, if component costs remain elevated.

To help soften the blow, Google is expected to bump the baseline storage on the standard Pixel 11 lineup from 128GB to 256GB. Barkat also revealed that Google's engineering teams are making an aggressive and "dedicated effort" to drastically improve Android's memory efficiency, allowing future devices to execute heavy on-device Gemini AI workloads smoothly without requiring increasingly expensive RAM pools.

We'll have to wait and see how it all unfolds. In the meantime, as we recently highlighted, you can still score some great deals on Google's current-generation Pixel 10 series:

• Pixel 10 128GB: $599 (25% off, save $200)
• Pixel 10 256GB: $699 (22% off, save $200)
• Pixel 10 Pro 128GB: $699 (30% off, save $300)
• Pixel 10 Pro 256GB: $849 (23% off, save $250)
• Pixel 10 Pro XL 256GB: $949 (21% off, save $250)