AJ
The Strait of Hormuz is not just a route for oil and gas, it’s vital for raw materials such as helium (for cooling chip production lines), naphtha (raw material for plastics and electronic components), and aluminium (laptop and phone bodies) also pass through the vital waterway.
With the closure of the Strait, aluminium factories in Bahrain and Qatar were forced to shut down, helium prices surged by more than 50%, and naphtha did not reach the ports, resulting in disruptions in the production lines of electronic components worldwide.
The Strait of Hormuz and also memory shortages caused phone and laptop prices in global markets to skyrocket, such as Samsung raising the prices of its existing models by $75 up to $150 for the first time, while Dell and HP had announced that laptops would become 20% more expensive.
In some emerging countries, phone prices have increased up to 50%, while global phone sales in the first quarter of 2026 fell by 4% to 6% compared to the previous year, and it is predicted that the worst performance in the phone industry in the past decade could occur, especially as laptops priced under $500 are gradually being removed from the market.
