New Delhi, April 7 -- Between US President Donald Trump's war in west Asia and a chip shortage triggered by Nvidia's focus on supplying artificial intelligence (AI) memory chips, India's top three smartphone brands Vivo, Oppo and Samsung, as well as Realme, Xiaomi and Nothing have emerged as the first casualties in a once-thriving market-increasing smartphone prices by as much as 40% across their portfolios.

The price hikes are significant: smartphones make for India's single-largest electronics category, with sales of over $43 billion through 2025. Since the pandemic in 2021, India has struggled to revive its smartphone market due to a stagnation of new features and an increasingly saturated market.

While companies so far managed singl...