{"id":221958,"date":"2026-01-07T19:45:09","date_gmt":"2026-01-07T19:45:09","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/221958\/"},"modified":"2026-01-07T19:45:09","modified_gmt":"2026-01-07T19:45:09","slug":"samsung-execs-warn-of-upcoming-phone-price-hikes-over-memory-shortages","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/221958\/","title":{"rendered":"Samsung execs warn of upcoming phone price hikes over memory shortages"},"content":{"rendered":"

Co-CEO of Samsung\u2019s mobile division, TM Roh, spoke to the media at the CES 2026 trade show, saying \u201cWe\u2019re facing one of the harshest pricing situations in memory\u201d and warning that \u201csmartphone price adjustments may be necessary\u201d.<\/p>\n

Samsung is working with other companies in its supply chain to try and deal with the situation in the long term as all kinds of electronics are affected by this \u2013 notably smartphones, but also TVs and other smart devices.<\/p>\n

Samsung\u2019s Global Marketing Head Wonjin Lee told Bloomberg that the company is considering \u201crepricing\u201d its phones to match the new economic reality. You can watch a short interview with Lee over on Bloomberg<\/a>. He talks about memory prices, the future of TVs, AI and more.<\/p>\n

\"Head
\nHead Wonjin Lee giving an interview to Bloomberg<\/p>\n

Samsung\u2019s semiconductor division was the largest chip maker in 2024<\/a>, though it did cede the memory crown in 2025 to rival SK Hynix. Even so, the sibling division that builds smartphones is having trouble sourcing memory chips at a good price.<\/p>\n

The upcoming launch<\/a> of the Galaxy S26 series will be a watershed moment for Samsung \u2013 Apple overtook it<\/a> to become the largest smartphone maker in the world and the iPhone 17 series is selling very well<\/a>. This would be a terrible moment for Samsung to raise prices \u2013 that\u2019s why the company is reportedly considering a price freeze<\/a> for the S26 launch in select markets.<\/p>\n

\"Samsung<\/p>\n

Samsung\u2019s executives also spoke of AI \u2013 the thing that every tech company under the sun is chasing and, ironically, the cause of the current memory price boom. According to a survey conducted by Samsung, AI brand awareness among Galaxy users has gone from 30% to 80% in the last year.<\/p>\n

The company plans to ship 400 million new AI-powered devices this year (smartphones, TVs, home appliances, etc.), which would double the total of Galaxy AI devices out there.<\/p>\n

Source 1<\/a> (paywall) | Source 2<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Co-CEO of Samsung\u2019s mobile division, TM Roh, spoke to the media at the CES 2026 trade show, saying…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":221959,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[16],"tags":[342,111,139,69,145],"class_list":{"0":"post-221958","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-mobile","8":"tag-mobile","9":"tag-new-zealand","10":"tag-newzealand","11":"tag-nz","12":"tag-technology"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/221958","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=221958"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/221958\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/221959"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=221958"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=221958"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=221958"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}