Ddos 
A global surge in memory demand has triggered acute supply shortages that are now rippling across multiple industries, with the smartphone market particularly exposed due to its heavy reliance on memory chips. For mid-sized and smaller smartphone manufacturers, the current environment has become especially unforgiving.
These companies already operate with pricing power and profit margins far below those of Apple. As memory chip prices rise, bill-of-materials costs increase while margins are squeezed. Raising handset prices risks depressing sales, leaving manufacturers with little choice but to absorb thinner margins or downgrade other hardware components to control costs. According to a recent report from Counterpoint Research, large-scale vendors such as Apple and Samsung are better positioned to withstand escalating memory costs. Even so, global smartphone shipments are still projected to decline by 2.1% in 2026.
Earlier reports suggested that Samsung’s smartphone division sought to negotiate an annual supply agreement with Samsung’s semiconductor arm to shield itself from relentless memory price increases, which were eroding profitability. That effort was rebuffed: the semiconductor division agreed only to quarterly contracts and refused to allow the smartphone unit to stockpile inventory.
Counterpoint Research concludes that while Apple and Samsung currently possess the greatest capacity to weather the spike in memory prices, their resilience is limited to only a few quarters. Other manufacturers, lacking sufficient flexibility to balance market share against profitability, are likely to face far harsher conditions. Ultimately, these pressures are expected to translate into higher prices for end products.
In the near term, Apple is expected to absorb the higher memory costs internally rather than immediately adjusting retail prices. Other smartphone makers, however, will almost certainly pass costs on to consumers. As a result, Counterpoint Research forecasts that the average selling price of smartphones will rise by 6.9% next year, with OEMs increasingly steering buyers toward higher-end models to preserve and expand margins.
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