(Yicai) April 16 -- Vendors at Huaqiangbei, one of the world’s largest electronics market located in the southern Chinese city of Shenzhen, have seen chip prices increase due to the impact of higher tariffs, though most shops in this vast building are open for business as normal.

Prices of central processing units and graphics processing units have been volatile since last week, several graphics card sellers and computer assembly service providers at Huaqiangbei told Yicai yesterday. The CPU brands mentioned include those of US semiconductor giants Intel and AMD.

They described the price hikes as normal market behavior, adding that there has not been any notable hoarding of chips as yet, so Huaqiangbei’s stores are open for business as usual.

“CPU and GPU prices have gone up a bit,” said the owner of one computer assembly business. “A CPU that was CNY800 (USD110) is now CNY890.” Other vendors said CPU prices jumped about 10 percent a few days ago, but have already started to fall back, gradually returning to normal.

GPUs in US chip giant Nvidia’s GeForce RTX 40 series and earlier models have all seen price rises, up by CNY300 to CNY400, according to a merchant who sells consumer-grade graphic cards and offers custom-built computer services. The GeForce RTX 50 series, just launched in January, is now clearly overpriced, he added.

None of the vendors could give a definite answer as to whether CPU and GPU prices will continue to rise, as end-user prices depend on market demand, and only strong demand can sustain higher prices, and import tariffs are also still in flux.

Besides microprocessors, a number of computer accessory sellers at Huaqiangbei said storage product prices jumped about 10 percent this month. US flash memory products are more expensive than before, while their Japanese and South Korean alternatives have remained basically unchanged, a merchant told Yicai.

It is worth noting that prices of solid-state drives have been climbing since earlier this year, and are not just higher as a result of recent tariff hikes.

Editor: Futura Costaglione