{"id":458745,"date":"2026-02-07T01:29:13","date_gmt":"2026-02-07T01:29:13","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/458745\/"},"modified":"2026-02-07T01:29:13","modified_gmt":"2026-02-07T01:29:13","slug":"your-next-smartphone-may-cost-more-amid-another-semiconductor-chip-shortage-national","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/458745\/","title":{"rendered":"Your next smartphone may cost more amid another semiconductor chip shortage – National"},"content":{"rendered":"

Consumers could wind up paying more for a variety of devices, including smartphones<\/a> and other electronics, as a surge in demand from artificial intelligence<\/a> and data centres sparks a global shortage of crucial semiconductor memory chips.<\/p>\n

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Memory chips are tiny electronic devices used to store information in a wide variety of applications, from smartphones and automobiles to robotics and scientific research, but with such high demand and rising prices for these chips, companies like Apple<\/a> say they are \u201cconstrained.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cWe\u2019re in a supply-chase mode to meet the very high levels of customer demand. We are currently constrained, and at this point, it\u2019s difficult to predict when supply and demand will balance,\u201d Apple CEO Tim Cook said in an earnings call with investors and analysts last week.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe do continue to see market pricing for memory [chips] increasing significantly. As always, we\u2019ll look at a range of options to deal with that.\u201d<\/p>\n

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The cost of these chips is skyrocketing, in part, because demand from innovations in AI is outpacing the speed to build the necessary chips and other technology, and those higher costs could get passed on to consumers.<\/p>\n

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According to a report from Counterpoint Research released Thursday<\/a>, memory prices have soared as much as 90 per cent so far this year compared with the last three months of 2025. Counterpoint researchers said in the report that this marks \u201can unprecedented and record-breaking surge.\u201d<\/p>\n

Researchers also said global shipments of advanced smartphone chips are expected to decline seven per cent in 2026, partly because of rising costs.<\/p>\n

\u201cThere\u2019s massive demand for AI data centres, and that requires huge, huge numbers of semiconductors. And at the same time, EV [electric vehicle] demand around the world continues to grow 20, 25 per cent a year and EVs are essentially computers on wheels,\u201d says Arvind Gupta, a computer science professor at the University of Toronto.<\/p>\n

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\u201cYou get both happening at the same time, and companies are trying to increase production as fast as they can. It\u2019s just a moment in time and it\u2019s difficult to keep up.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt hasn\u2019t hit the smartphone market to the same degree \u2014 although it may drive up the cost of smartphones going forward.\u201d<\/p>\n

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Typically, when a business does not have enough supply to meet the demand of its customers, scarcity drives up prices and consumers wind up paying more.<\/p>\n

\u201cCellphones are trying to keep up with this sort of AI wave that we\u2019re in right now, and you may find our portal into that, which is quite often our phone, that may end up being affected more than, let\u2019s say, your common car,\u201d says Eduardo Bailetti, an assistant professor of technology innovation management at Carleton University.<\/p>\n

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\u201cAnd people upgrade their phones more often than their car too, right? So they may find a little bit more of an effect on that.\u201d<\/p>\n

One of the world\u2019s largest smartphone chip manufacturers, Qualcomm, reported earnings results on Wednesday, and said it was also facing challenges from a shortage of memory chips and rising prices.<\/p>\n

\u201cWhile our near-term handsets outlook is impacted by industry-wide memory supply constraints, we are encouraged by end-consumer demand for premium and high tier smartphones,\u201d Qualcomm CEO Cristiano Amon said in the earnings release.<\/p>\n

\u201cAs memory suppliers redirect manufacturing capacity to HBM [High Bandwidth Memory] to meet AI data center demand, the resulting industry-wide memory shortage and price increases are likely to define the overall scale of the handset industry through the fiscal year.\u201d<\/p>\n

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\n\t\t&copy 2026 Global News, a division of Corus Entertainment Inc.\t<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Consumers could wind up paying more for a variety of devices, including smartphones and other electronics, as a…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":458746,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[16],"tags":[276,49,48,1849,46,190,187743,1124,64,61],"class_list":{"0":"post-458745","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-mobile","8":"tag-artificial-intelligence","9":"tag-ca","10":"tag-canada","11":"tag-consumer","12":"tag-economy","13":"tag-mobile","14":"tag-semiconductor-shortage","15":"tag-smartphones","16":"tag-tech","17":"tag-technology"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/458745","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=458745"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/458745\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/458746"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=458745"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=458745"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=458745"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}