Phison Electronics CEO K.S. Pua predicts a massive disappearance of consumer electronics manufacturers by the end of 2026 due to an acute memory shortage caused by the AI boom.
In an interview, he stated that the imbalance between supply and demand for DRAM and NAND Flash could persist until 2030, and the market has completely shifted to supplier control, with demands for three-year prepayments.
The shortage will primarily hit smartphone, PC, and TV manufacturers. Phone production could drop by 200–250 million units. The reason is that chipmakers are prioritizing data center clients with higher margins, where memory accounts for only 5–6% of the cost, whereas in smartphones, this figure reaches 20%.
Prices have skyrocketed: the cost of 8GB eMMC has jumped from $1.5 to $20, and automotive versions are approaching $30.
The main driver of the crisis is the demand for AI infrastructure. Pua cited NVIDIA's Vera Rubin as an example: if the company ships 10 million GPUs with SSDs exceeding 20 TB each, it would consume about 20% of global NAND memory production.
Under these circumstances, consumers will likely have to repair old equipment more often rather than buying new.