RAM shortage is coming for all you care

You may have heard: memory is beloved now. The price of RAM has tripled and quadrupled, Up to six times depending on Slide typeAll because AI companies are grabbing it.

But you may have thought: I don’t buy memory cards! I don’t build my own computers! It won’t affect me, will it?

I’m here to tell you that RAM is coming for your wallet anyway.

Do you have a phone in your pocket and want to upgrade it in the next few years? Do you want a gaming console or a handheld? A laptop, perhaps? Will you need a new router, whether you buy it outright or rent it from your ISP? It is expected that each of these devices will suffer from shortages and increased prices. Or both In 2026. Even if you don’t plan to buy, you depend on goods and services from others who will pay more to upgrade their devices.

“RAMageddon” is getting worse, and there’s no immediate end in sight. Everything a computer has is based on RAM, and almost everything a computer has now: agricultural tractorshospital equipment, TV set-top box. Random access memory (RAM) is a device’s short-term memory, and AI in particular needs a lot to juggle all the data it processes. Most of the RAM comes with Of only three companies prioritizing the AI ​​gold rush On everything else.

We may never know how many products have actually been postponed or canceled due to RAM – e.g How Nvidia Might Skip Launching a Gaming GPU For the first time in 30 years, or how dead There may not be a single VR headset released this year And plan to He gets paid a premium When they come back in 2027, or how Sony The next PlayStation may be delayed to 2029 Because of RAM.

But we know RAMageddon is coming to your phone next.

Analysts From IDC, Omdeaand Counterpoint I agree: 2026 was one of the best years ever for smartphone sales, with shipments increasing nearly 2 percent to approximately 1.25% one billion Phones in one year. apple Announced record iPhone sales In January.

They also all agree that the RAM shortage is about to turn that on its head. Prices will rise. There will be fewer products available. Or as Omdia Research Director Le Xuan Chiew Put it down“Sellers will shift toward prioritizing profitability while expanding alternative revenue sources.”

Leading smartphone chip maker Qualcomm warns that companies will build fewer phones, and the remaining phones will be more expensive. CEO Cristiano Amon says the big decline in the smartphone business will be “100 percent” due to the lack of memory.

Here are some choice quotes from Amun on Company’s earnings call on February 4th:

How much more can you pay? It’s hard to say, But IDC points out This memory represents 15 to 20 percent of the material cost of a mid-range phone, and about 10 to 15 percent of the cost of a high-end flagship phone. When we first started Report RAM that destroys everythingIDC thought average phone prices might rise by just $9. It now expects the average price to rise by up to 8 percentwith “much higher” price hikes for cheaper phones, as “OEMs will have to pass the cost on to end users.”

That means if you Used to buy $500 phonesit could easily cost $600 or more. Even if you’re used to $1,000 phones, you may get less value for your money: “New flagship models in 2026 will likely not have RAM upgrades, sticking with 12GB for pro models rather than increasing to 16GB,” IDC wrote. We’re already seeing something similar: Google Just announced the Pixel 10A With no new chipset and the same modest 8GB of RAM inside.

Even Apple, which can usually bully suppliers over pricing, is feeling the pressure on its supply chain now that AI companies are writing huge checks for memory supplies. Reports The Wall Street Journal. This may force it to increase the price of its iPhones to maintain the company’s profits. Apple CEO Tim Cook Analysts said this quarter It “will look at a range of options to address” the way the shortage impacts the company’s gross margins.

“Industry sources” He said Znet Korea Apple may pay 80 percent or even 100 percent more for memory this quarter after renegotiating with Samsung and SK Hynix — and perhaps even more in the second half of the year.

The era of “code and code” console support – where companies sell consoles at a loss and make their money through exclusive software – I finish Even before the RAM crisis starts. Trump’s tariffs broke the damAnd now we half expect The next Xbox will be a $1,000 PC Instead of the traditional controller.

Bloomberg Reports RAMaggedon is also coming to the Nintendo Switch 2 in the form of a price hike, and to Sony’s PS6 in the form of a delay “to 2028 or even 2029.”

Our last and best hope for a support model was Valve, the popular company Fire starter handing money with fist It launched the original Steam Deck at the unbeatable price of $399 A “painful” amount of support. If Valve does the same with the upcoming Steam Machine, it could do just that Legitimately compete with PlayStation and Xbox For your living room TV.

But Valve dashed those hopes with a series of moves. In late December Discontinued the $399 Steam Deckbringing the starting price to $549. In early February, it was announced that The steam machine is late Due to the lack of memory and the company will have to reset expectations regarding pricing. And now, up to $549 Steam Deck OLED is out of stock Specifically because of the memory crisis.

Other laptops are getting more expensive too: Although the Lenovo Legion Go 2 will get SteamOS this year, memory shrinkage Meaning it will cost more or contain less Compared to the Windows version when it first arrived, with less horsepower, storage and RAM at the $1,199 mark. MSI Claw 8 AI Plus, Which I thought was expensive at $999now costs $1,099, $1,149, or even $1,199 depending on where you look.

PCs generally need more RAM than phones and consoles, and are damaged faster by PC makers I didn’t feel the need To store RAM in advance. They also generally require larger SSD drives Prices rose by 90 percent In one quarter.

For this reason, almost all major laptop manufacturers – such as Lenovo, Dell, HP, Asus, and Acer – plan to raise prices by 10, 20, or even 30 percent, and Why Chosun Biz Lenovo, HP, Dell, Samsung and LG are reportedly rethinking their PC product roadmaps for 2026.

IDC suggests The entire PC market could decline by 4.9 to 8.9 percent in 2026, while TrendForce predicts A 2.4 percent decline in laptops where growth was previously expected.

It is said that Dell Prices have already begun to rise of its laptops range from $55 to $765, depending on the components you choose. A modular laptop company Writes the frame Its own cost has risen from about $10 per gigabyte to as much as $16 per gigabyte, so it is selling new laptops and motherboards for 6 to 16 percent more than it used to.

“We are once again increasing prices enough to cover cost increases from our suppliers,” wrote Framework CEO Nirav Patel.

Although Lenovo He has admitted to hoarding RAM Not to run out, the world’s largest PC maker is still paying extra to secure its supply for 2026; CEO Yang Yuanqing He said Bloomberg Its memory costs rose 40 to 50 percent last quarter, and he suggested prices could soon double.

Although Apple has not announced plans to raise MacBook prices due to rising RAM prices, it is very likely that we will see it for ourselves in just a couple of weeks. At the March 4 event.

“No rest until 2028” said Intel CEO Lip Bo Tan In early February, after speaking to two of the big three memory companies. One of them, Micron, said the same thing publicly, He says Wccftech That its memory factory in Idaho won’t open until mid-2027 — and that you “won’t really see real production” until 2028. SK Hynix As previously predicted The shortage will continue until late 2027.

While Micron, SK Hynix, and Samsung are in control About 95 percent From the global supply of dynamic random access memory (DRAM), they make enough money to ramp up memory production, and it will take time to build their promised new factories. They also find it more profitable and less risky to build slowly rather than rushing to meet demand.

As SemiAnalys founder Dylan Patel He told us in Decemberit wasn’t long ago that some of these memory companies were losing money due to overproduction: “The scary thing about this industry is that if you overbuild too much, you’ll end up bankrupt.” Samsung is expected to increase the supply of memory chips By only 5 percent this year.

In the meantime, RAM makers will make the most of it, while ultimately passing on the extra costs to you.