More bad news for tech prices. This time, Counterpoint Research’s Memory Price Tracker hints at smartphone price hikes in 2026, as mobile RAM costs have increased by 50 percent quarter-on-quarter and NAND storage is now up by over 90 percent QoQ.
This translates to a higher Bill of Materials (BoM) for smartphones — extra costs that will be passed on to consumers.
While all price segments will be affected, low-end phones will feel it the most.
With these new prices, the 6GB LPDDR4X RAM and 128GB eMMC storage on a low-end phone will amount to a whopping 43 percent of its total BoM. That’s a staggering 25 percent increase from the previous quarter.
For midrange phones with 8GB LPDDR5X RAM and 256GB UFS 4.0 storage, they expect to increase BoM by up to 20 percent and 16 percent, respectively.
Flagship phones’ higher margins provide slack, but the higher prices of the 2nm chipset could be an issue.
Bottomline, expect price hikes on smartphones this year. In fact, Counterpoint forecasts that low-end phones may cost USD30 (~Php1,800) more, while premium phones may get up to a USD200 (~Php11,800) price hike.
Source: Counterpoint Research