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.
Mobile DRAM and Mobile NAND Flash latest market supply/demand update.
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.
This report will show surveys of the mainstream smartphone panel sizes' quote prices, which will be categorized by including different resolutions, specifications, modules or product formations such as cell or glass. Prices will be also presented by their high-, low- and average-price levels for customers' references. Besides, smartphone panel price forecast is newly added, it could keep clients updated on smartphone panel price trend in the year to come.
Quarterly Smartphone Panel Shipment keeps track on global major panel makers’ shipment scale and movement on smartphone panels. This report specially provides analysis on ranges of delivered panel sizes, take close control on the movement of smartphone sizes development.
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.
Through accumulating major components' costs, this report analyzes smartphone's mainstream size panels' cost structure and predicts their future cost trend, so that our customers can accurately calculate panel cost structure and products' profitability.
This report will show surveys of the mainstream smartphone panel sizes' quote prices, which will be categorized by including different resolutions, specifications, modules or product formations such as cell or glass. Prices will be also presented by their high-, low- and average-price levels for customers' references. Besides, smartphone panel price forecast is newly added, it could keep clients updated on smartphone panel price trend in the year to come.
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.
The upward trend in memory prices persists into 1Q26, with no clear signals of a cessation appearing so far for the year. Amidst this super-cycle of price hikes, although smartphone brands have struggled to maintain operations through retail price adjustments and product mix optimization, total production volumes have shifted to a year-on-year decline, with the magnitude of the drop continuing to widen. It is worth noting that despite the pessimistic outlook, brands remain hesitant to breach the Long-Term Agreements (LTAs) established with suppliers, aiming to avoid facing tighter supply and even higher procurement costs in the future.