A banner has appeared in the window of the Withings website announcing that several products within the lineup will see price increases in the coming weeks. If you click through, you’ll find the full Withings catalog with tags that have been put in place to identify which products are affected by the changes. In the US, it notes that only Body Cardio, Sleep Analyzer, BPM Connect and 38mm ScanWatch products will see an increase between $20 and $30.
The dates seem to be spread out somewhat by region – for example, the Netherlands will see price changes on September 19, while prices in the US won’t change until October 1.
Withings states that “since 2020, some of our components, such as the microcontroller in Body Cardio, have increased by 20% and transport costs by more than 200% since the start of the Covid-19 crisis.”
The company has decided to change its prices to reflect the ongoing shortage of semiconductors, which is expected to continue into 2023. Withings also claims it is unwilling to “compromise on quality or innovation”, turning down the option to source cheaper materials.
Withings is certainly not the only brand feeling the consequences of the chip shortage. As technology adapts, the demand for chips has increased, while the supply lacks the capacity to keep pace, causing delays and shortages, from household appliances to vehicle production lines.
The reasons for the chip shortage include canceled orders at the start of the pandemic, limited production for in-demand but obsolete modules, and demand that only seems to be increasing, as Harvard professor Willy Shih explained to us last year at the Decoder podcasting.
Rising inflation this year has also been attributed to price increases for many technical products. While some companies, such as Apple, can afford to absorb some of these costs (note that prices for the iPhone 14 Pro and Apple Watch Series 8 have not increased over their previous generations), others choose not to, such as Meta who of its Quest VR headset and Sony’s everywhere-except-the-US PS5 price hike.
