Counterpoint Research’s Memory Price Tracker shows that mobile RAM costs have risen by 50% quarter-on-quarter, while NAND storage has gone up by over 90% QoQ. “Higher retail prices are unavoidable in 2026 as rising costs will be passed to consumers,” warn analysts.
The rising memory costs are having quite an impact on the Bill of Materials (BoM) for smartphones. The different tiers are affected differently and low-end phones (sub-$200) are hit the hardest.
When building a typical low-end phone with 6GB of LPDDR4X RAM and 128GB of eMMC storage, manufacturers will have to spend a whopping 43% of the phone’s total BoM on memory. This is an increase of 25% compared to the previous quarter.
For a typical mid-ranger ($400-$600) with, say, 8GB of LPDDR5X RAM and 256GB of UFS 4.0 storage, the manufacturer will spend 15% more on RAM and 11% more on storage. And that is if the phone is built in Q1 – in Q2, the numbers are expected to be 20% and 16%, respectively.
Smartphone Memory Cost Share Estimation in Different Price Segments (source)
Premium and flagship phones ($800+) may have bigger margins to help absorb the impact, but they also face an additional issue – flagship 2nm chipsets are quite pricey.
Counterpoint estimates that BoM costs will rise by $100-$150 in Q2 for a phone with 16GB of LPDDR5X HKMG RAM and 512GB of UFS 4.1 storage. This means that RAM will account for 23% of the BoM and storage will account for 18%.
As mentioned in the first paragraph, retail prices are expected to rise – Counterpoint is estimating that low-end phones will become around $30 more expensive, while premium phones will see price hikes of $150 to $200.
“The memory price surge is delivering a structural impact to smartphone BoM costs. In 2026, OEMs will struggle to balance component costs, gross margins and shipment targets. Those who rely heavily on entry-level models to drive market share will face a significant risk of short-term losses,” writes Senior Analyst Shenghao Bai.
