The Great Memory Squeeze: Why Your Next Phone, Laptop and TV Will Cost More

If you've been eyeing a new laptop, smartphone or smart TV and quietly waiting for prices to drift back down to pre-pandemic norms, brace yourself. A global memory shortage — quietly building through 2024 and now openly acknowledged by the industry's biggest players — is about to reset what we pay for almost every gadget with a chip inside it. And Australian consumers, sitting at the end of long import chains and paying in a softer dollar, will feel it sharply.

At CES 2026 in Las Vegas, Samsung used its keynote to warn that the RAM shortage will drive consumer tech price hikes across the board. That's an unusual admission from a company that not only sells finished products but is also one of the world's largest memory manufacturers. When the supplier is telegraphing the squeeze, it's no longer a rumour — it's a repricing event.

What's actually causing the shortage

The simple version: artificial intelligence is eating the world's memory supply. Training and running large AI models requires staggering quantities of high-bandwidth memory (HBM) and advanced DRAM, and the hyperscalers — Microsoft, Google, Meta, Amazon, and a fleet of newer AI specialists — have signed long-term contracts that lock up the bulk of leading-edge memory output for years.

Memory makers like Samsung, SK Hynix and Micron have responded rationally: they've redirected fab capacity toward the higher-margin HBM used in AI accelerators, leaving conventional DDR5, LPDDR5 and NAND for consumer devices in shorter supply. Analysis from International Data Corporation describes this as a genuine market crisis with knock-on effects flowing directly into the smartphone and PC markets through 2026.

It isn't only memory. As Channel Dive reports, HPE has rolled out a three-pronged plan to weather broader chip shortages — including managing inventory more aggressively, diversifying suppliers and reshaping product roadmaps. When enterprise giants are building defensive playbooks, it's a signal the constraint is structural, not a blip.

Why this isn't 2021 all over again

The pandemic-era chip shortage was largely a logistics and demand-shock story: factories paused, then everyone bought a laptop at once. Supply eventually caught up. This one is different in three important ways.

TrendForce's analysis of what it calls the AI Memory Squeeze notes that Japan's consumer electronics makers — historically efficient operators with deep supplier relationships — are still being forced to absorb cost increases or pass them on. If Sony and Panasonic can't dodge it, neither can JB Hi-Fi's suppliers.

What will get more expensive, and by how much

Not every device will move equally. Memory is a bigger share of the bill of materials in some categories than others:

Samsung's own warning at CES suggests price moves will be visible to consumers — not just absorbed in the supply chain. Industry analysts tracking contract DRAM prices have already seen double-digit percentage increases through the back half of 2025, and those flow into retail roughly two quarters later.

What it means for Australian buyers

Australia imports virtually all of its consumer electronics. That means three compounding effects:

1. The underlying USD price rises as global memory costs flow through to finished goods.
2. The AUD/USD rate magnifies or cushions that. A weaker Australian dollar — as we've seen for stretches of the last year — amplifies the pain.
3. Retailer behaviour matters. Harvey Norman, JB Hi-Fi, Officeworks and the telcos will choose how aggressively to pass through costs, and how much to lean on financing and bundling to disguise sticker shock.

Practically, that suggests the smart play for anyone who genuinely needs new kit in the next 12 months is to buy sooner rather than later, and to spec up on RAM and storage now rather than planning to upgrade later — because aftermarket memory will likely be more expensive too, where it's even user-upgradeable.

When might prices drop again?

This is the question worth being honest about. Based on what the major analysts and manufacturers are signalling, the squeeze is unlikely to ease meaningfully before late 2026, and possibly not until 2027. There are a few things to watch for as leading indicators of relief:

None of these are imminent. The IDC analysis points to the impact being fully felt through 2026, which implies the trough — if there is one — comes after that.

The bigger picture

What's really happening here is a reordering of who consumer electronics is built for. For two decades, the industry's economic logic assumed that ordinary buyers — people picking up a phone or laptop every few years — were the volume engine that justified investment in next-generation silicon. That assumption is now being tested.

If a hyperscaler will pay any price for HBM to feed an AI cluster, and a consumer will hesitate at a $200 price rise on a laptop, the rational allocation of scarce wafer capacity is obvious. The memory squeeze isn't just a temporary supply-demand mismatch; it's the first clear sign that consumer electronics has lost its position as the priority customer of the world's most strategic industry.

That doesn't mean phones and laptops will become luxury goods overnight. But it does mean the era of relentlessly falling prices, ever-larger storage at no extra cost, and casual generational upgrades may genuinely be over. The next time someone tells you tech always gets cheaper, you can politely point to the RAM aisle.

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