Phone makers of all sizes are feeling the RAM crunch

We spoke with phone companies both big and small this week at MWC and they all basically agreed on one point: the RAM crisis is hitting hard, and phone prices will almost certainly rise where they haven’t already.

For a major global brand like Xiaomi, scale is one of the levers the company can pull. To offset the increased costs, Angus Ng, Xiaomi’s Director of Communications and PR, told us, “We can go towards larger volumes, especially in the mid-range segment and entry-level segment, so that we can then try to reduce costs in this area.” Pulling other levers, such as reducing key specifications, is not an option. “…We have to go after the latest and intend to showcase our best,” says Ng. the Xiaomi 17 and 17 Ultra It launches this week in Europe Matches last year’s pricesBut it seems that this trend may not continue in the long term.

Prices are so unpredictable that suppliers treat RAM as the catch of the day. Caiwei Tang, CEO and co-founder of Lite, says the company survived a “terrible” year last year thanks to the tariff chaos, and now faces more uncertainty in the RAM crisis. Foxconn, Light’s smartphone supplier and manufacturer, laid out the truth two months ago, Tang says. “You can order memory, but they don’t tell you the price until the day it ships. So it’s like trading stocks.” He says Light can still decline the order, “yes or no, they don’t care if you don’t want it,” but that means they’ll switch to the next company in a long queue to sell.

If there’s some sort of silver lining to be found, it’s this everyone Feel the pressure in one way or another. “It’s not as if someone is excluded from it. Everyone has to deal with this difficult problem,” says Stefan Street, TCL’s chief marketing officer for Europe. Even in the face Some bleak forecasts As for the global smartphone market, Streit has a firm tone. “We have to accept the challenge”