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In mid-March, Samsung released its 2Q26 quotes ahead of schedule, with price hikes far exceeding market expectations. TrendForce believes this move is primarily aimed at accelerating downward revisions in the consumer end-market to free up production capacity for high-margin and strategic products. The recent softening of spot prices reflects the inability of consumer products to absorb these high costs, resulting in cutbacks to production plans and channel sell-offs to clear inventory. However, the overall reality of the memory supply shortage remains unchanged.
1Q26 Mobile DRAM contract prices were fully finalized in mid-March, with the QoQ increase being the most moderate among all applications. However, to maintain a profitability balance across different applications, TrendForce believes that suppliers are highly likely to initiate a pronounced "catch-up price hike" for smartphones in 2Q26. Under extreme cost pressure, Chinese brands have, in a rare move, begun retroactively raising the retail prices of older models, while non-Chinese majors are facing a similarly severe test in their end-device pricing strategies. Overall, a further downward revision of the total global smartphone production volume for 2026 is virtually inevitable.
AI demands and chip upgrades drive smartphone storage growth despite high costs. Brands raise base specs, making large capacities the new standard.
Mobile DRAM revenue hit new highs driven by surging contract prices, confirming a seller-driven super cycle. Major manufacturers shifting capacity to AI applications has tightened supply, allowing CXMT to expand in mature nodes. Looking ahead, sharp price hikes will boost supplier profits, but high costs are forcing smartphone brands to cut production, leading to a market of rising prices and shrinking volumes.
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Propelled by surging contract prices, Mobile DRAM revenue broke the $10 billion mark in 4Q25, a quarterly jump of over 30%. Entering the off-peak 1Q26, while bit demand is expected to contract, the significant hike in contract prices should still drive revenue to new highs. In terms of market structure, a highly concentrated "Big Four" landscape has formed, comprising Samsung, SK hynix, Micron, and China’s CXMT. Meanwhile, Taiwan’s Nanya and Winbond have seen revenue surge as major players exit the low-density market, though their overall market share remains limited.
Global smartphone production showed moderate growth in 2025, with Samsung and Apple tying for the top spot in market share. However, driven by sharply rising memory prices, overall production volume is projected to see a significant downward revision in 2026. Brands will experience polarization based on their differing product portfolios. Overall, the memory price supercycle will be the key variable reshaping the global smartphone market landscape in 2026.
The 1Q26 DRAM price rally is led by Server and PC applications, while a compensatory price increase for smartphone LPDRAM cannot be ruled out for 2Q26. With conservative NAND Flash capacity expansion and market inventory at low levels, conditions remain favorable for continued price increases in 2Q26. Although continuous sharp increases in memory prices have caused a decline in demand for consumer end-products, the overall memory market is expected to remain in shortage, underpinned by strong demand for AI servers. Simultaneously, impacted by significantly rising manufacturing costs, the reshuffling of the smartphone market will accelerate, with high-end brands standing to benefit relatively more.
The industry enters a 2026 Super Cycle driven by DRAM and Enterprise SSDs. Despite a slowdown in consumer electronics, AI remains the primary growth engine. Low inventory levels and the transition to high-value products like HBM4 will maintain a seller-dominated market with double-digit price growth extending beyond 2026.
Driven by robust demand for AI servers and high-performance computing, the memory market has entered a super-cycle of price hikes starting from 2H25. Escalating memory costs are forcing brands to raise end-device prices and scale back low-end models to cope with cost pressures. Against this backdrop, the year-on-year decline in global smartphone production for 2026 could widen to approximately 15%, or potentially even higher, under a pessimistic scenario. However, given the absence of signals indicating a halt in price increases and persistent supply tightness, most brands are choosing to maintain their established procurement volumes with suppliers to secure resource allocations. It is noteworthy that this wave of memory price increases is driving up the retail prices of various electronic devices, further evolving into a broader risk of consumer electronics inflation.
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