TrendForce: Q2 mobile memory contract prices continue to rise, and smartphone production is compressed

According to TrendForce’s latest memory survey, Mobile DRAM contract prices will continue to rise sharply in the second quarter of 2026, and smartphone brands are facing heavier cost pressure.

Among them, the price strategies of the two major Korean original manufacturers have diverged: Samsung tends to settle the price all at once, with a relatively significant increase; and judging from the current provisional quotation provided by SK hynix, the increase is relatively moderate, adopting a step-by-step strategy of raising prices, and is expected to complete pricing in late May. Overall, TrendForce predicts that in the second quarter, the average selling price (ASP) of LPDDR4X will increase by at least 70%-75% quarter-on-quarter, and that of LPDDR5X will increase by 78%-83% quarter-on-quarter.

It is worth noting that the sharp price increases for several consecutive quarters have put increasing cost pressure on mobile phone brands. In this environment, in addition to reducing the total annual production of smartphones in 2026, it may also be difficult to achieve the LTA bit purchase volume signed by brand manufacturers and original manufacturers at the end of 2025.

The era of high prices reshapes smartphone DRAM specifications, and large-capacity configurations are suppressed

With high-priced DRAM becoming the norm, mobile phones are forced to re-adjust specifications: high-end is mainly 12GB, and 16GB is reduced; mid-range returns to 8GB core; low-end converges to 4GB. With the gradual elimination of 2GB/3GB and the production reduction of low-end devices, the average storage capacity of global smartphones will still increase to 8.5GB in 2026, an annual increase of 10%.

This memory price increase will continue to put profound and heavy pressure on the global mobile phone industry in the next few quarters. TrendForce pointed out that mobile phone brands are forced to adopt more active response strategies, including coordinating app developers to reduce the consumption of memory capacity and developing service models that rely more on cloud resources. The purpose is to simultaneously optimize software and system architecture to maintain operational resilience and brand competitiveness under the dual challenges of cost pressure and slowing demand. (Source: TrendForce)

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