Smartphone Shipments Just Hit a New Low. Thanks, RAMageddon - CNET
If you’re holding on to your phone despite a wave of new, high-powered options, you’re not alone. Hitting the lowest mark since 2012, smartphone shipments worldwide continued a months-long skid, slumping 20% in the third quarter of 2026 due to the RAMageddon memory shortage, according to a new analysis by Counterpoint Research.
Counterpoint said that the cost of DRAM and NAND — the two main memory chips used in smartphones, computers and data centers — continues to rise, forcing manufacturers to raise phone prices, which are up 20% overall this year. Memory costs more because there’s less of it to go around, thanks to the massive AI infrastructure buildup and its voracious appetite for chips.
It was the second consecutive quarter to take “the full brunt of the memory crisis,” Shilpi Jain, a senior analyst at Counterpoint, said in a statement Monday.
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