World RAM Scarcity Will Increase Smartphone Costs in 2026, Analysts Say. However How A lot?

The insatiable demand for extra generative AI is spiking costs in laptop elements, which might roll into pricier smartphones subsequent 12 months.

Years of cryptocurrency mining have elevated the costs of laptop elements resembling graphics playing cards. So it is not shocking to see this pattern proceed with the rise of generative AI and its unrelenting want for extra computing energy.

What the buyer tech world did not count on was a rise in demand for reminiscence, which has led to a good market in shopper RAM for PCs in current months. That ripple impact has prolonged past computing to influence the smartphone trade as properly. 

Quite than the reminiscence sticks that slot into PC motherboards, smartphones use specialised RAM that is miniaturized to slot in handsets. Nonetheless, with reminiscence manufacturing shifting to satisfy the demand for enormous orders from information facilities that deal with AI workloads, the gen AI rush is driving up costs for every type of RAM. 

And this is not only a non permanent mismatch in provide and demand — it could possibly be a everlasting shift on this planet’s silicon wafer capability, in response to a mid-December report from the market intelligence agency Worldwide Information Company (IDC). 

Cellphone-makers weathered the financial turmoil of tariffs by absorbing prices, however analysts predict it will be a unique story in 2026 — and price will increase will seemingly be handed on to shoppers.

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“Within the case of the upcoming reminiscence disaster, that is one thing that can hit the market onerous, particularly to [phone-makers] taking part in within the low finish the place margins are extraordinarily tight,” mentioned Nabila Popal, senior analysis director at market intelligence agency Worldwide Information Company (IDC). “These distributors could have virtually no selection however to cross the elevated price to shoppers.”

How rather more costly will telephones get subsequent 12 months? The low finish of low cost telephones will seemingly see the largest fluctuations. Popal expects costs on this class to spike by at the least 5-10%. That is as a result of reminiscence makes up 15-20% of the fabric prices of cheaper telephones, which is the next proportion than that of pricier premium telephones (round 10-15%), in response to the newest IDC report.

In response, phone-makers will shift their mixture of merchandise towards the upper finish, promoting dearer handsets which have increased margins, Popal predicts. This reminiscence disaster has been disruptive sufficient to change IDC’s prediction of common telephone costs in 2026, swinging from a slight decline to a 2% improve. Whereas that is more likely to result in a decline in models shipped subsequent 12 months, elevated costs are anticipated to drive the general smartphone market to a file excessive worth of $578.9 billion, in response to an IDC report launched in early December. 

As reminiscence costs spike, telephones would possibly drop their RAM specs

Except for elevating handset costs, the reminiscence scarcity could lead on phone-makers to vary course from increasing the quantity of RAM of their product configurations to sustaining and even decreasing it. 

Within the third quarter of 2025, over 51% of smartphones shipped had at the least 8GB of RAM or extra, mentioned Francisco Jeronimo, vp of consumer gadgets at IDC; that quantity rises to just about 93% for handsets priced at $400 or above.

“In 2026, entry-level and mid-range smartphones could revert to 4GB RAM configurations to protect worth in price-sensitive markets,” Jeronimo mentioned.

The 8-GB threshold is critical, because it’s roughly thought-about a baseline requirement for working on-device generative AI options, resembling Galaxy AI and picture options on the Google Pixel sequence. Whereas telephones can and do run hybrid and absolutely cloud-based gen AI providers, resembling ChatGPT, sending requests to and from information facilities ends in lag time earlier than folks obtain solutions to their queries, and so they aren’t usable when underground or past cell service.

The reminiscence scarcity has seemingly stalled any plans to pack probably the most premium telephones with reminiscence to spice up AI efficiency, with 24GB of RAM or increased configurations scrapped for the foreseeable future, Jeronimo predicts. The higher restrict on top-tier handsets is more likely to be 16GB, and “Professional” variants could even revert right down to 12GB to guard margins and keep away from worth hikes.

The extent to which these impacts are detrimental will depend on the period of the reminiscence scarcity. However the shock to shopper wallets will seemingly make them wait longer to interchange their telephones, particularly in elements of the world the place handsets are purchased wholesale. In markets just like the US, the place telephones are extra generally purchased on installment plans lasting two to 3 years, folks will not see as a lot of successful to their month-to-month payments.