Memory Chip Procurement Paused by Leading Smartphone Makers for Q4 2025: Excessive Demand for Memory Chips Results in Around 50% Higher Pricing

The world has already entered a phase where AI has become an integral part of everything and as the reliance on AI models and tools increases, data centers are in great need of memory chips. New reports are now being shared revealing that this high demand for memory chips have brought the price up by around 50%, and smartphone makers are temporarily planning to halt the procurement of memory chips for the quarter.

Here’s more about it.

Smartphone Makers Pause Memory Chip Procurement Due to Increased Price

Realme’s Product Marketing Head – Francis Wong just recently shared on X regarding how the ‘soaring prices of upstream memory chips’ has forced smartphone makers to pause the procurement of memory chips for this quarter (Q4 2025), while the inventory levels of most of these companies are less than two months only. BBK Electronics companies like OPPO and Vivo reportedly have inventories of below two months, and the same is the case with Xiaomi too. However, the DRAM stocks of a few other companies are said to be as low as three weeks.

As mentioned above, the new wave of AI models and tools as well as their heavy reliance have led to the high demand for memory chips by data centers, and subsequently this demand has spurred the price of memory chips to increase drastically. Original component suppliers like Samsung, Micron, and SK Hynix are currently charging about 50% more for memory chips, and smartphone brands are hesitant to purchase them at such high prices.

Just to add, another update (received via an insider) also claims that the memory chip manufacturers are not worried about stock pile-up or anything, and if the smartphone brands are not ready to purchase the memory chips, stock allocation can easily be done to meet the demand of server customers.