If you’re in the market for a new phone next year, you might want to hold off a little bit. According to Android Authority, phones are about to become more expensive due to recent inflation in RAM prices, with new reports suggesting that phone specs could actually start going down as a result.
According to Korean leaker Lanzuk on the blog Naver, the surge in memory prices will force the smartphone industry to raise prices and lower specs, starting in Q1 of 2026. Reportedly, phones with 16GB of storage will pretty much disappear, except for rare outliers. It is a similar story for 12GB devices, as those models are down by over 40 per cent, with more and more manufacturers opting for 6GB and 8GB RAM models as the base variants.
Even then, numbers have decreased by over 50 per cent for the previously mentioned 8GB RAM models, leaving some manufacturers with no choice but to lower the specs.
Why the sudden surge in prices? Well, mainly it’s because of AI.
With the current AI boom, companies large and small are rushing to adopt AI. The increasing demand for AI is also driving rapid demand for AI datacenters, which in turn require large amounts of both High-Bandwidth Memory (HBM) and high-capacity enterprise SSDs, which suppliers haven’t been able to meet, thus causing the price hike.
To meet the demand of higher-paying companies willing to spend money, RAM manufacturers have started shifting consumer DRAM production lines to HBM, which in turn is causing a lower supply not only of DRAM but also of NAND flash memory commonly found in smartphones.
I’m not sure if this is affecting the higher-end phone manufacturers like Apple and Samsung, who may be able to eat the price increase, but phone manufacturers are facing a decision: either increase prices or lower the specs on newer devices coming out in 2026.
As Android Authority notes, this affects all products that use RAM and storage, so it might not only affect consumer tech but also the automotive industry, which commonly uses RAM and storage to power screen-filled vehicles.
Source: Android Authority
