The shortage of AI chip memory has hit the industry hard, and smartphone shipments in the second quarter hit a 13-year low
AI memory shortage continues to hit the smartphone market, with shipments falling to 13-year low Affected by the shortage of memory and storage chips that continues to drag down the consumer electronics industry, global smartphone shipments fell year-on-year in the second quarter. According to data from market research firm Counterpoint, mobile phone shipments fell 11% year-on-year, recording the worst second-quarter performance in 13 years. Shilpi Jain, senior analyst at Counterpoint, said in the report: "The global memory crisis has now replaced all other factors and become the number one drag on the smartphone industry. This crisis was just a component supply issue last year and has now completely evolved into a demand-side constraint." International data company IDC also pointed out that mobile phone shipments fell sharply in the second quarter, affected by memory shortages, with an estimated year-on-year decline of 6.7%. Each research institution uses different statistical calculation models, so there are differences in the data. On September 20, 2025, in a store in Moscow, Russia, staff prepared to display iPhone 17 for sale. The low-end and mid-range model markets have been hardest hit. Consumers in this price range are much more price sensitive than the high-end flagship market. Nabila Popal, senior research director of global consumer devices at IDC, wrote in a research report: "Memory costs have skyrocketed by nearly 300% compared with last year, and now account for more than 65% of the total material costs of low-end models. Mobile phone manufacturers that specialize in entry-level models are facing a sharp increase in survival pressure." "The second quarter data confirms our previous judgment: this industry downturn is not a simultaneous shrinkage across the board; the memory crisis benefits high-end brands, while manufacturers that mainly deal in low-end models suffer huge losses." Another research firm, Omdia, calculated a relatively mild decline in shipments, but agreed with Counterpoint and IDC that memory shortages have caused serious market polarization. Data from the three institutions all show that (AAPL) and Samsung (005930.KS) achieved growth in shipments in the second quarter; Domestic manufacturers such as , OPPO and vivo bear the main pressure of the industry decline. Although high-end brands maintain short-term shipment growth, some analysts believe that they will still face resistance in the future, especially Apple. On Monday, KeyBanc Capital Markets analyst Brandon Nispel issued an investor research report, downgrading Apple's stock rating to "underweight." Their concern is that the price of the next generation of iPhone may increase, coupled with operator purchase discounts and reduced subsidies, consumer replacement cycles may be lengthened. He said that this will eventually drag down the growth of Apple's services business segment. "We expect Apple's service business revenue growth in FY27 to initially be 13.5%, and then fall back to 7%." Multiple forecasts show that the memory shortage crisis may last until next year or even longer; some experts believe that the chip supply bottleneck caused by the demand for AI computing power will not be completely alleviated until 2030.