Smartphone costs surge as brands take divergent action

T2Covered by 1 source · first reported by JP/KR/TW: Korea Herald / Taipei Times / DigiTimes at 14 Oct, 00:42 UTC

Memory prices have surged 4–5x in recent years, and smartphone brands' efforts to pass those costs on to consumers have already hurt sales of new devices in 2026. With large-scale AI deployments continuing to drive strong demand, the memory shortage is expected to persist, putting further…