Related: South Korea bets 880 billion dollars that the AI race is won in chips.
The AI boom has a new bill coming due, and this time it shows up on a phone receipt. According to a report from ZDNet Korea relayed by Sammy Fans on July 3, Samsung is negotiating to raise its DRAM average selling price by up to 20 percent in the third quarter of 2026 compared with the second quarter. An unnamed semiconductor industry official described the company’s stance in blunt terms, saying Samsung is taking a very aggressive posture in these negotiations and plans to raise prices by more than 20 percent. That follows a roughly 90 percent jump in Samsung’s DRAM prices in the first quarter and a further 50 to 60 percent rise in the second, an unusually steep run for a component that used to see modest, predictable price swings.
The timing lands right as the industry’s biggest phones of the year are shipping. Samsung is preparing three foldable devices including the Galaxy Z Fold 8, while Apple is readying two high-volume iPhones and its first foldable iPhone. Both companies have reportedly already locked in DRAM supply for these specific Q3 launches, which is why analysts do not expect an immediate sticker shock on the phones landing this quarter. The exposure shows up further out. Devices due in the fourth quarter and into 2027, including the Galaxy S27 line, are expected to face the fuller weight of rising component costs, since their memory has not yet been secured at older prices.
Not every forecast lines up with Samsung’s ask. TrendForce, a research firm that tracks memory contract pricing, projects the actual third quarter increase will land somewhere between 13 and 18 percent, short of the 20 percent Samsung is pushing for. That gap is normal in supplier negotiations, but it also signals real pushback from buyers even in a tight market.
The reason memory is behaving this way traces directly back to artificial intelligence. Chipmakers including Samsung, SK hynix, and Micron have been converting production lines toward high-bandwidth memory, the specialized chips that feed data-hungry AI training and inference systems in the cloud. Revenue per wafer for HBM runs several times higher than for standard mobile DRAM, so it is a rational business decision for memory makers to chase that demand first, leaving comparatively thin supply for phones, laptops, and other consumer devices. JPMorgan has estimated that DRAM and NAND storage could climb from roughly 10 to 15 percent of an iPhone’s component cost today to more than 45 percent by 2027 if the trend holds. Apple CEO Tim Cook has reportedly called the broader memory and storage shortage a hundred-year flood, a description that captures how unusual the current squeeze looks against past cycles.
The knock-on effects are already visible at the industry level. IDC has forecast that global smartphone shipments could fall nearly 13 percent in 2026, even as the average selling price of a phone climbs toward roughly 523 dollars, a record high. Cheaper phones are expected to be hit hardest, since manufacturers have less room to absorb rising memory costs on lower-margin devices, while flagship buyers may simply see slower spec upgrades or modest price increases folded into new models.
None of this means Apple or Samsung has confirmed specific retail prices for their next flagships, and both companies have historically tried to hold headline prices steady even when costs rise elsewhere in the bill of materials. But the direction of travel looks clear. As long as AI data centers keep absorbing the world’s memory supply faster than fabs can expand, the cost of that boom will keep finding its way into ordinary consumer electronics, one contract negotiation at a time.
Source: ZDNet Korea via Sammy Fans (July 3, 2026); industry pricing context via Bloomberg, CNBC and TrendForce. Credit: ZDNet Korea / Bloomberg.