{"id":762001,"date":"2026-07-14T08:21:11","date_gmt":"2026-07-14T08:21:11","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/762001\/"},"modified":"2026-07-14T08:21:11","modified_gmt":"2026-07-14T08:21:11","slug":"price-hikes-trigger-smartphone-sales-slump","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/762001\/","title":{"rendered":"Price Hikes Trigger Smartphone Sales Slump"},"content":{"rendered":"

Global smartphone sales dropped to their lowest second-quarter level in 13 years as manufacturers passed on to consumers the rising cost of memory components, Counterpoint Research<\/a> said in a Monday (July 13) press release<\/a>.<\/p>\n

Total shipments fell 11% year over year in the second quarter to reach the lowest second-quarter level since 2013, according to the release.<\/p>\n

However, Apple<\/a>, the only major manufacturer that didn\u2019t make smartphone price hikes during the quarter, saw its shipments increase 3%, the release said. The company also benefited from the continued strength of its iPhone 17 series.<\/p>\n

Memory prices continued to rise during the second quarter as memory suppliers prioritized meeting the demand from artificial intelligence data centers over that from consumer electronics, per the release.<\/p>\n

Smartphone demand was also impacted by geopolitical tensions in the Middle East, which further inflated smartphone prices, as well as a broader macro squeeze, slower global growth, higher inflation and record-low consumer sentiment, according to the release.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe global memory crisis has now overtaken every other factor as the single biggest drag on the smartphone industry,\u201d Counterpoint Research Senior Analyst Shilpi Jain<\/a> said in the release. \u201cWhat started as a components issue last year is now a full-blown demand issue.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cThe entry and mid-tier devices, which account for a majority of the world\u2019s smartphone volumes and are the most exposed to BOM [Bill of Materials] economics, become structurally unfeasible at previous price points,\u201d Jain said.<\/p>\n

Looking ahead, Counterpoint Research expects that global smartphone shipments will decline by about 14% for the full year and that the global memory shortage will persist in 2027.<\/p>\n

The company said that \u201coverall demand recovery is unlikely until memory supply conditions improve substantially.\u201d<\/p>\n

It was reported in January that the expansion of generative AI was beginning to alter the economics of consumer electronics in visible and lasting ways. Memory components<\/a> that once flowed predictably into smartphones, personal computers and gaming hardware were increasingly being diverted toward large-scale AI systems under long-term supply agreements.<\/p>\n

In March, it was reported that the two trends topping the agenda at the mobile industry event MWC Barcelona 2026 were the shortage of memory chips<\/a> needed by the smartphone industry as well as the incorporation of AI features into the latest mobile devices.<\/p>\n

It was reported in June that Apple raised the prices<\/a> of its Macs and iPads, attributing the increases to the surging costs of components used in the devices but didn\u2019t change the price of its iPhones.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Global smartphone sales dropped to their lowest second-quarter level in 13 years as manufacturers passed on to consumers…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":762002,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[41],"tags":[182,24176,165,3,3300,7600,3053,74,3301],"class_list":["post-762001","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-mobile","tag-ai","tag-ai-infrastructure","tag-mobile","tag-news","tag-pymnts-news","tag-retail","tag-smartphones","tag-technology","tag-whats-hot"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/762001","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=762001"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/762001\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/762002"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=762001"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=762001"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=762001"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}