Silicon Valley giants have been hoovering up capacity for memory chips, known as Ram or random access memory.
Chipmakers have diverted their production lines to build high-value chips for AI labs that have been willing to pay more, pushing up prices for electronics makers.
Prices of contracts for conventional Ram chips nearly doubled quarter-over-quarter in the first three months of the year, up as much as 95pc, according to analysts at TrendForce.
Mr Pei said this was expected to filter through to consumer electronics prices. He said: “Every consumer electronic product with memory – the memory pricing is going up.”
“Companies either have to raise their prices or they have to reduce some of the other components in their products.”
He added that for companies trying to compete on price, this presented a particular challenge.
“Companies that are just focused on low price, they’re going to really struggle this year,” he said.
Mr Pei added he believed Apple was in “the best position” to weather the shortages, since its phones are aimed at high-end buyers who are less price-conscious.
The Nothing boss was speaking as his smartphone start-up confirmed the launch of its latest handsets, the Phone (4a), which will start at £349, and Phone (4a) Pro for £499.
Its latest phones feature a digital “Glyph Matrix” on the back of the device, which can be used to display notifications using LEDs. Its phones also feature partially transparent cases to reveal the inner mechanics of the device.
The company has also sought to redesign its smartphone’s operating system, launching a service called Playground that allows phone users to build customised apps for their handset using AI models similar to Anthropic’s Claude or OpenAI’s ChatGPT.
“The basic ideal is if you have an app you want to create, you can just use natural language to type it in, and we can help you generate it,” Mr Pei said, envisaging what he called a “personal operating system”.
“This is going to be a mindset shift in terms of software. In the past, one piece of software was made for many different people. In the future, there’s going to be personal software that’s just for one person.”
Mr Pei added Nothing had started considering a future public listing for the business, which is backed by Google and Qualcomm.
He said this would require a “significant chunk” of its revenue to be generated outside the US. “We want to be ready [to go public] by 2028,” he said. “Then we will look at the market conditions and see what’s the best.”
