GoKawiilAdamya Sharma / Android Authority
TL;DR Nothing co-founder Carl Pei says RAM now costs more than the processor and display combined, making it the biggest hardware expense.
Memory prices have surged in recent months as AI-driven demand continues to soak up global supply, pushing up smartphone manufacturing costs.
According to Pei, the impact is already showing up in new launches, with some Android phones costing up to $100 more than their predecessors.
We’ve already been tracking what soaring RAM prices could mean for your next smartphone — from RAMageddon pushing flagship costs higher to newer Android launches creeping up in price. It’s largely fuelled by surging demand from AI-heavy computing workloads, and this is now affecting how much you pay for your next phone. That’s exactly the point Carl Pei, co-founder of Nothing, recently highlighted on X, putting a very real industry concern back into the spotlight.
Pei had already warned earlier this year that 2026 could reshape how we think about consumer electronics pricing. Now, he’s doubling down on that stance, resharing his old post on X and reinforcing a point many buyers are only just beginning to feel in real time: smartphones are getting pricier, and it’s not because brands suddenly decided to get greedy.
The global rush to build AI-heavy systems’ surge has pushed up memory costs across the board, and according to Pei, the impact is significant enough that memory now costs more than the processor and display combined, accounting for over half of the total hardware bill.
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Pei even pointed to the Nothing Phone (4a) as an example of how quickly things are changing. He noted that during its development and launch cycle, memory prices effectively doubled — and then, before the industry could stabilize, they doubled again. That kind of spike is actually brutal. It’s like planning a product and its economics around one parts list, only to find out halfway through that your biggest expense just doubled again.
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