Samsung’s once-unshakable dominance in the smartphone market faces an unprecedented challenge—potential losses by 2026. TM Roh, head of the company’s Mobile Experience division, recently cautioned executives that the tech giant may record its first annual net loss in smartphones, despite consistent sales growth. This shift isn’t tied to weak demand or economic downturns but to the soaring costs of critical components, particularly DRAM and NAND flash memory, which are now essential for AI workloads.
The AI Memory Crunch Threatens Smartphone Margins
The smartphone industry has long operated under the assumption that hardware improvements would always justify premium pricing. However, the rise of AI has inverted that logic. Memory chips like LPDDR5x, which power everything from on-device AI features to cloud-based processing, have become a scarce and expensive resource. Even Samsung’s Galaxy S26 Ultra, a flagship device released earlier this year, relies heavily on these components. Industry analysts note that the memory allocated to a single AI server could match the total RAM in thousands of smartphones—underscoring the scale of the imbalance.
How AI Is Disrupting the Smartphone Business Model
Samsung isn’t alone in feeling the pressure. The entire tech sector is grappling with a memory shortage that spans consumer laptops, data center hardware, and mobile devices. Nvidia’s upcoming Vera AI CPU, slated for late 2026, exemplifies this trend. Each Vera CPU packs up to 1.5 TB of LPDDR5x memory, while Nvidia’s next-gen rack-scale platforms will combine 36 Vera chips with 72 Rubin GPUs. The RAM required for a single server alone could replace the memory in roughly 4,600 Galaxy S26 Ultra devices (each equipped with 12GB of RAM).
This dynamic is forcing manufacturers to prioritize AI-capable hardware over traditional smartphones. For Samsung, the financial strain is twofold: rising component costs and the need to invest in AI-driven features to remain competitive. Roh’s warning suggests that these pressures may soon outweigh the revenue generated by mobile sales, marking a historic inflection point for the company.
What’s Next for Samsung and the Broader Tech Landscape
If Samsung’s projections hold, the smartphone market could see a fundamental realignment. Competitors like Apple and Huawei are also navigating similar challenges, though none have faced the same scale of memory-dependent AI integration. The company’s leadership faces a critical decision: reduce smartphone profitability margins to fund AI expansion or risk falling behind in an industry where AI is rapidly becoming the primary differentiator.
Analysts will closely watch Samsung’s upcoming earnings reports for signs of how deeply the memory crunch is affecting its bottom line. For consumers, the implications are indirect but significant—fewer flagship smartphone launches, delayed AI features, or higher prices could reshape the market in the next two years. One thing is clear: AI’s insatiable appetite for memory is rewriting the rules of an industry that once thrived on predictable cycles of innovation.
AI summary
Samsung’un 2026 yılında akıllı telefon satışlarından net zarar yaşayabileceği uyarıları gündemde. DRAM ve NAND fiyatlarındaki artış ile AI talebinin yükselmesi, şirketin kârlılık denklemini nasıl değiştirecek?
