Memory shortage drives up consumer electronics prices

A memory shortage is causing consumer electronics prices to rise. David Oks explains that three major memory manufacturers have fixed wafer capacity split between DDR, LPDDR, and HBM. HBM, used with GPUs, previously got 2% of wafer allocation but is expected to reach 20% by end of 2026 due to AI data center growth. A gigabyte of HBM consumes over three times the wafer capacity of DDR or LPDDR. Companies under-provision capacity to avoid overproduction. HBM demand constrains consumer-device RAM production, already affecting sub-$100 smartphones in Africa and South Asia.