Ludhiana: Prices of storage devices, including SSDs, and RAM, are soaring high. The prices have been rising steeply in the past four-five months. Not only is there a shortage of these in the market, but due to increased prices, prices of laptops and desktops have also seen a jump.The prices of storage devices have jumped nearly 4-5 times in the past four months while the prices of hard drives that were costing about Rs 4,000 have jumped more than four times to Rs 18,000. The cost of 8 GB RAM that was earlier about at Rs 3,000 has increased to Rs 11,000.The laptop that was costing about Rs 35,000 has seen a jump to about Rs 51,000.As the prices of graphics cards have also increased due to storage, prices of gaming laptops, earlier costing Rs 70,000 until December are now worth Rs 1.25 lakh.There is a increase in the prices of storage devices and chances of prices decreasing in the near future also seem unlikely because there is a large shortage of these devices, says Gurpreet Singh, chairman of Association of Computer Entrepreneurs (ACE) and also chairman of Punjab Association of Computer Traders (PACT). The main reason for price rise is Artificial Intelligence (AI) cloud-based systems requires more storage because companies have shifted their focus on manufacturing for AI that requires big servers and storage. As a result, many firms have reduced their manufacturing for consumer market, leading to massive shortage of these devices and leading to rise in prices, he said.There are approximately 300 dealers of computer hardware in Ludhiana and about 1,300 overall in Punjab.Their investments have gone up and sales have slowed, adversely impacting their business, Subhash Kumar, former president of ACE from a prominent computer and hardware store in Kochar Market, said. There is currently a pause, as those who need computers for essential and critical works are being dealt with, but those who wanted to upgrade and the number f students were purchasing laptops have decreased.Prices of graphics cards have also increased. What was available at about Rs 26,000 earlier is now available at Rs 33,000, said Harish Mishra, manager at a gaming computers chain. The residents said due to the jump in prices, they were settling for a simpler configuration and starting range of laptops. “I was planning to purchase one with better RAM, processor and storage. I delayed my decision, but within a budget of about Rs 55,000 only starting range is available,” Kirat, a business owner said.As storage devices and computers are getting more expensive, these are getting more out of reach of many. This might lead to slowdown in the market and impact their sales and business, the computer dealers and traders fear.
