Samsung will reportedly raise DRAM and NAND prices for smartphone makers

Korean publication Sisa Journal e reports that Samsung Electronics (the DS division, specifically) wants to increase the prices of DRAM and NAND for smartphones by 7% to 10%.

Chinese smartphone makers are first – negotiations with them are already underway. Apple will be asked back to the negotiating table in Q4 (October-December). Even Samsung’s smartphone division will not be spared (the DS and DX divisions operate separately).

Apple may be a tough cookie to crack, though. Analysts estimate that Apple buys two times as much NAND for its smartphones as Samsung and three times as much as Xiaomi. This gives it a lot of negotiating power.

The problem is that Samsung (as well as SK Hynix and Micron) is making big profits off high-margin memory like HBM and server DRAM. So, memory fabs focus on high-performance, high-margin memory types instead of the LPDDR that smartphones need.

According to market research firm Omdia, the prices of DRAM and NAND have skyrocketed since last year and will continue to rise, albeit at a slower pace. Check the table below for the costs of an 8GB/256GB combo and a pricier 12GB/512GB configuration – keep in mind that this is just what the RAM and storage cost. Omdia predicts that prices will remain high until the first half of 2027.

Source (in Korean)