- India’s smartphone shipments declined in late 2025 as memory (RAM) costs surged and inventories remained high.
- Rising component costs and subdued demand could slow future innovation and reshape pricing and product strategies.
What happened: India’s smartphone market faces RAMageddon disruption
India’s smartphone market ended the year on a weaker note, with shipments dropping 7% year on year to 34.5 million units in the fourth quarter of 2025, according to data from Omdia, a sister company of Telecoms.com. The market’s struggles reflect a convergence of surging memory prices, cautious consumer spending, and high channel inventories.
Soaring costs for dynamic random-access memory (DRAM)—the type of RAM used in smartphones—were a significant factor. Global smartphone makers have already reported price increases and supply constraints linked to what analysts have dubbed ‘RAMageddon,’ a situation where intense demand from cloud and AI infrastructure is eating into the available memory supply and driving up prices. Industry reports cite DRAM price increases of 40%–60% in late 2025.
In Q4, Chinese Original Equipment Manufacturers (OEMs) such as Vivo and Oppo were the only major brands to see growth, increasing shipments by 16% and 10%, respectively, driven by strong dealer networks and competitive pricing strategies. Meanwhile, other leading brands, including Samsung and Xiaomi, saw declines, and Apple’s shipments remained broadly flat as consumers deferred purchases amid weak demand and pricing uncertainty.
Omdia’s principal analyst, Sanyam Chaurasia, noted that “most leading brands faced pressure … amid cautious channels, pricing resets, and weaker mass-market demand”—capturing a tough environment for volume-dependent sales.
For the full year, India shipped 154.2 million smartphones in 2025, a 1% decline compared with 2024. Omdia expects the market to shrink further in 2026, forecasting mid-single-digit declines as higher memory costs and subdued demand weigh on upgrades.
Why it’s important: component cost pressures reshape the mobile landscape
The phenomenon dubbed “RAMageddon” forms part of a broader memory squeeze affecting the global technology supply chain. The rapid expansion of AI and cloud data center demand has redirected a growing share of DRAM production towards high-bandwidth memory (HBM) and enterprise applications, tightening supply for consumer electronics such as smartphones. Analysts caution that this imbalance is already reshaping availability across the device market and may persist into 2026.
Rather than feeding directly through to higher handset prices, rising memory costs are increasingly visible in weaker consumer demand and slower sell-through. Manufacturers and channel partners in several markets have reported more cautious ordering behavior as uncertainty around component supply and device configurations grows. This dynamic has contributed to inventory build-ups, particularly in price-sensitive segments.
For consumers, the memory squeeze appears to be dampening the incentive to upgrade. With fewer clear performance gains at lower price points, buyers are holding on to existing devices for longer. This slowdown in replacement cycles has historically had a knock-on effect on feature adoption and volume growth. The impact is most pronounced in entry-level smartphones, which typically account for the largest share of unit sales in markets such as India and are most exposed to shifts in component availability.
Device makers are already adjusting their strategies in response. Industry analysts note that some OEMs are reassessing product mix and launch timing, while others are prioritizing models that offer more predictable component sourcing. In parallel, elevated inventory levels are forcing manufacturers and retailers to focus on stock clearance rather than aggressive expansion.
While memory shortages are often discussed in the context of AI and cloud infrastructure, their effects on consumer markets highlight how upstream demand pressures can ripple through the wider ecosystem. In India, a critical growth market for global smartphone vendors, the early effects of RAMageddon suggest that supply-side constraints are now translating into softer demand and inventory challenges, with implications for near-term market momentum and longer-term strategy.
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