You’ve probably noticed phones haven’t been getting cheaper. The RAM crisis grinding away at the industry for months isn’t letting up. According to a new TrendForce projection, mobile DRAM prices could jump between 93% and 98% quarter-over-quarter in Q2 2026. That’s on top of a 58–63% increase that LPDDR5X already saw in Q1.
To put that in dollar terms: LPDDR5 contract prices were hovering around $10 per gigabyte earlier this year, per SemiAnalysis. If TrendForce’s numbers hold, manufacturers could be paying close to $20 per gigabyte by the end of Q2. Some manufacturers are reportedly already signing long-term supply agreements at up to $21/GB. Memory prices are already roughly three times what they were at the start of 2025. Analysts don’t expect meaningful relief until at least late 2027.
Why AI Is Making Your Phone More Expensive
The root of the mobile DRAM prices problem sits with AI data centers. Samsung, SK Hynix, and Micron control the vast majority of global DRAM production. All three have been shifting manufacturing capacity toward high-bandwidth memory, the kind that powers AI accelerators and servers. That’s a high-margin product for them. So regular phone-grade DRAM keeps getting squeezed out, and smartphone makers are competing for whatever’s left.
The impact hits budget phones hardest. TrendForce flagged back in December that low-end smartphones could revert to 4GB of RAM in 2026. Brands are trying to hold price points without absorbing the full cost increase, and something has to give. Apple isn’t immune either, and budget Android phones are feeling it even more acutely. If you’re holding off on upgrading and waiting for mobile DRAM prices to normalize, analysts say that’s going to be a long wait.