GoKawiil
Tech News
Counterpoint Research reports smartphone shipments dropped 20% year-over-year in Q3, the weakest third quarter since 2012, as DRAM and NAND price surges pushed retail phone prices up 20% this year. Despite falling shipment volumes, Samsung and Apple both grew market share, with Samsung reaching 23% and Apple hitting 22%—its highest-ever Q3 share—even before releasing the base iPhone 18.
CXMT president Cao Kanyu said the Chinese memory maker plans to ship its first 4F²-based product, a server DDR5 RDIMM, before year-end, though speeds and capacities remain unannounced. The chip uses a denser vertical-transistor cell layout, called Vertical Surrounded Gate, that shrinks cell area roughly one-third versus current 6F² designs, and CXMT says it holds over 300 patent families related to the technology.
Counterpoint Research reports worldwide smartphone shipments dropped 20% in the third quarter of 2026, the lowest level since 2012, as a shortage of DRAM and NAND chips pushed phone prices up roughly 20% this year. Samsung and Apple both gained market share—23% and 22% respectively—but each still saw shipments decline year-over-year, while Samsung raised Galaxy S26 prices by $100 and Apple's new iPhone 18 Pro line launched $100 higher than its predecessor.
TrendForce's latest report projects global notebook shipments will fall by a low single-digit percentage in 2027, driven by weaker consumer demand rather than component shortages. The research firm also expects the share of notebook production outside China to shrink from 24% in 2025 to 21% in 2026, and potentially below 20% in 2027, as rising costs make offshore manufacturing less appealing. TrendForce notes that CPU, DRAM, and SSD prices currently make up about 68% of the bill-of-materials cost for a typical $900 notebook.
RAM temporarily stores data a processor needs quick access to, using capacitors that lose their charge once power is cut, unlike ROM which retains data permanently. TrendForce reports that DRAM contract prices jumped 90 to 95 percent quarter-over-quarter in early 2025, driven largely by AI data center buildouts such as NVIDIA's proposed $100 billion investment with OpenAI for 10 gigawatts of capacity. Micron also shut down its consumer-focused Crucial brand in February to prioritize higher-margin AI data center business.
TrendForce's latest industry report projects global notebook shipments will fall in 2027, with the decline ranging from low- to high-single-digit percentages depending on how brands handle rising component costs. The firm notes that CPU, DRAM, and SSD costs made up 68% of the bill of materials for a $900 mainstream notebook in Q3 2026, and that 2026 shipments were propped up by early purchasing and pulled-forward replacement demand that is unlikely to repeat.
YouTube channel NorthWestRepair published a video showing technician Tony attempting to repair two physically damaged DDR5 ECC RDIMM server memory modules, a 128GB and a 256GB stick, together said to be worth $16,000. Using a reflow technique with flux and hot air, he got the first module working again, while the second showed no signs of life and appeared to have a faulty PMIC chip.
Micron reported fiscal Q4 2026 revenue of $54.23 billion, nearly five times higher than a year earlier, with a record 87% gross margin company-wide. Its Mobile and Client consumer unit posted the highest operating margin among its four segments at 88%, even though it was the only unit to ship less memory than the prior quarter. Micron attributed the unit's 14% quarter-over-quarter revenue growth to higher pricing offsetting lower bit shipments.
Micron CEO Sanjay Mehrotra said demand will outstrip supply for DRAM and NAND through 2027 and 2028, even tighter than in 2026, with most of next year's capacity already sold. Despite planned shipment growth in the low-to-mid 20% range, the company says it has no visibility into when supply and demand will balance, while forecasting record fiscal-quarter revenue of $61.5 billion and an 86.25% gross margin.
Micron CEO Sanjay Mehrotra told investors that demand for the company's memory will outstrip supply for at least the next couple of years, driven by business sales of high-bandwidth memory and DRAM for AI and servers. He said 75% of Micron's 2027 output is already committed, with most current sales talks focused on 2028, and new clean rooms won't open until 2028 with only gradual production ramp-up afterward. Samsung executives reportedly made similar comments this week about a prolonged memory shortage.
Micron's FY27 guidance states that demand from humanoid robots and other physical AI devices could outpace data centers as a driver of memory and storage demand. CEO Sanjay Mehrotra said each humanoid robot needs roughly 200GB of DRAM and several terabytes of storage, and that current memory demand already exceeds supply by about 50%. The company expects new cleanroom capacity to be insufficient to ease the shortage soon.
During its FY2026 earnings call, Micron said RAM and NAND shortages will intensify through 2027 and 2028, with CEO Sanjay Mehrotra stating demand will keep outpacing supply despite planned shipment growth in the low-to-mid 20% range. The company also guided for record FQ1 revenue of $61.5 billion and an 86.25% gross margin, implying over $53 billion in gross profit and projected EPS of $38.15 per share.