Memory Chip Shortage Pushes PC, Phone Makers to “Ship Fewer, Sell at Higher Prices.”

01 PC Makers Shift Toward “Shipping Fewer Units, Selling at Higher Prices,” Concentrating Resources on High-Value-Added Products

In the PC market, it is becoming increasingly obvious that manufacturers are raising product prices to make up for declining shipments.

Data from U.S. market research firm IDC shows that global PC shipments in the second quarter of 2026 totaled 68.2 million units, down 4.9% year-on-year, returning to decline after nine consecutive quarters of growth.

Meanwhile, IDC expects the global average selling price of PCs to rise by 20% in 2026. Even if PC shipments continue to come under pressure, product prices are expected to continue rising modestly through 2027.

The reason behind this is that PC makers are trying to offset the impact of falling sales by raising prices, thereby maintaining overall revenue.

Judging from the recent performance of various manufacturers, this trend has already become quite evident.

HP Inc.'s Personal Systems business saw unit shipments fall 16%, but revenue rose 18% instead.

Dell Technologies' Client Solutions Group revenue grew 20%, while Lenovo Group's PC and Smart Devices business revenue also increased by about 30%.

With memory supply limited and prices rising significantly, major manufacturers are prioritizing securing supplies of high-priced memory while reducing production of low-end products and concentrating more resources on higher-margin high-end products.

The Wall Street Journal (WSJ) reported that manufacturers are especially hoping to increase the share of AI PCs in their product mix—that is, PCs capable of performing AI computing locally on the device—to mitigate the impact of the overall market contraction.

02 “RAM Doomsday” Spreads to Phones and Game Consoles, With Emerging Markets Under Greater Pressure

The impact of the memory shortage is also spreading to the smartphone and game console markets.

The UK's Financial Times (FT) reported that on online forums and other platforms, some users have begun calling the current memory shortage “RAMageddon.”

The term is a combination of “RAM” and “Armageddon,” used to describe the shock caused by soaring memory prices and tight supply.

Data from Hong Kong-based market research firm Counterpoint Research shows that DRAM prices have increased fivefold over the past year.

In 2026, more than 40% of smartphone models have already seen price increases.

Counterpoint said in its analysis that global smartphone retail prices have currently risen by about 15% on average, while prices of new models are about 25% higher than comparable same-tier products from the previous year.

In emerging markets with higher price sensitivity, this impact is especially pronounced.

In markets dominated by low- to mid-range products, end-product prices are relatively low and profit margins are thin, so when bill of materials (BOM) costs rise, smartphone manufacturers find it difficult to fully absorb them on their own.

By country and region, smartphone prices in India rose 21%, while those in Asia-Pacific (APAC) rose 19%.

By contrast, in markets such as the United States and Europe, where carrier channels dominate, price increases have been relatively smaller, at about 5% in the United States and about 7% in Europe.

One reason is that these markets commonly use installment payments, trade-ins and other sales methods, which to some extent buffer the direct impact of end-price increases on consumers.

The home game console market is also facing similar problems.

The Financial Times noted that Microsoft, Sony Interactive Entertainment (SIE), Nintendo and other companies have long adopted a business model in which game consoles themselves are sold at very low profit, or even near break-even, with profits then generated through game software and service subscriptions.

But as component costs rise rapidly, this model has also come under pressure.

Because it is difficult to fully absorb rising costs, multiple console makers have raised console prices by as much as $150 over the past few months.

03 HBM Prioritized as General-Purpose Memory Production Lines Are Squeezed, Manufacturers Begin Cutting Product Specs

The root cause of this round of component supply tightness is the rapid explosion in demand for AI chips.

Major global memory manufacturers are currently prioritizing the expansion of HBM (High Bandwidth Memory) capacity.

HBM is one of the key components determining the processing performance of AI servers, but its manufacturing process is more complex and also consumes substantial production resources.

As more capacity is allocated to HBM, the supply of general-purpose memory used in traditional consumer electronics products declines accordingly.

Meanwhile, large U.S. hyperscalers—that is, major cloud computing providers—are also locking in memory supply shares in advance through long-term agreements (LTAs), further intensifying procurement difficulties for consumer electronics manufacturers.

To cope with rising component costs, some manufacturers have begun controlling costs by adjusting or even downgrading product specifications.

Finland's communications equipment giant Nokia has begun making design adjustments to some devices, reducing the memory capacity in its products.

A similar trend has emerged in the smartphone industry.

Some manufacturers are considering reducing built-in storage capacity in phones, adjusting camera configurations, and even reintroducing 4G phones in certain price segments to lower overall device costs.

04 Supply-Demand Balance May Not Come Until After 2028, as Declining Demand and Inventory Buildup Become New Risks

In terms of actual production capacity, it may still take a long time for memory supply and demand to improve.

As the U.S. Semiconductor Industry Association (SIA) has pointed out, it usually takes several years for a new semiconductor wafer fab to go from construction to actual production.

Considering that it still takes time for manufacturers' new plants to come online and for new capital expenditure to truly translate into market supply, the current supply shortage may not see relatively significant easing until after 2028.

In the short term, the strategy of maintaining revenue by raising product prices has already begun to work.

But over the medium and long term, consumers extending their device replacement cycles is also beginning to emerge as a new risk.

UK market research firm Ampere Analysis estimates that if game console prices reach above $1,000, cumulative sales over the next five years could fall by as much as 43%.

At the same time, another contradiction is also emerging.

To popularize on-device AI, endpoint devices such as smartphones and PCs generally need to be equipped with higher-capacity memory.

But memory prices themselves are continuing to rise, driving up the prices of finished devices and potentially hindering the adoption of AI features in consumer electronics.

On the distribution side, the market is also becoming wary of possible inventory buildup of high-priced products.

For electronics manufacturers, they will next have to strike a balance between two things: on the one hand, they need to cope with rising costs by increasing product added value and selling prices; on the other hand, they must avoid prices becoming so high that they further suppress market demand. Against the backdrop of persistently tight memory supply, the entire consumer electronics industry is facing a far-from-easy adjustment in business strategy.