Xiaomi Bets 110 Million Phones on a Memory Price Turn Its Own Data Hasn’t Confirmed

Xiaomi has raised its 2026 smartphone shipment target from roughly 95 million to 110 million units, a jump of about 16% that the company is staking on memory chip prices finally breaking its way. The bet is aimed almost entirely at budget phones, the segment gutted hardest by two years of DRAM and NAND price spikes.

The number is bold precisely because Xiaomi has been burned by this exact call before. But the industry’s own memory-price tracker still shows costs rising through the third quarter, just more slowly. Xiaomi isn’t betting prices have already turned. It’s betting they turn before its suppliers’ own forecasts say they will.

Xiaomi’s Target Swings From 170 Million to 110 Million

The whiplash is the story on its own. Xiaomi entered 2026 aiming for around 170 million units, matching its actual 2025 volume, according to supply chain sourcing relayed by Jiemian News. Memory shortages wrecked that plan almost immediately.

By January, Xiaomi and rivals including OPPO, vivo and Transsion had already cut their order volumes, with Xiaomi’s own reduction exceeding 20%, pulling the full-year target down to 135 million. A second cut followed in June, this one closer to 30%, dragging the target to roughly 95 million units, a contraction of more than 40% from where the year began.

Now it has reversed course entirely.

1. Start of 2026: Xiaomi targets about 170 million units, in line with its 2025 shipments.
2. January 2026: Memory shortages force a first cut to 135 million, alongside similar reductions at OPPO, vivo and Transsion.
3. Late June 2026: A second cut, reported by Nikkei Asia, drops the target to roughly 95 million units.
4. July 21, 2026: Xiaomi raises the target to 110 million units, a roughly 16% increase, with supply chain sources telling Jiemian News the company expects to buy DRAM and NAND more cheaply again before year end.

Some coverage rounds the pre-hike figure to about 90 million rather than 95 million, but every version of the story agrees on the direction: Xiaomi just reversed a retreat it had made twice in six months.

OPPO and Vivo Draw a Line on Samsung’s Asking Price

Xiaomi isn’t alone in pushing back. Industry sources say OPPO and vivo recently rejected Samsung Electronics’ proposed third-quarter memory pricing outright, even though the ask was smaller than the previous two quarters.

The specific number mattered. Samsung had reportedly sought an additional increase of up to 20% on DRAM average selling prices for the third quarter, with LPDDR mobile memory potentially rising even faster, according to a TrendForce report on Samsung’s Q3 DRAM pricing push. Twenty percent sounds modest only next to what came before it.

Samsung’s own disclosed numbers show why. Its DRAM average selling price rose more than 90% quarter over quarter in the first quarter of 2026, then an estimated 50% to 60% in the second. A 20% ask for the third quarter is a slowdown, not a discount, and OPPO and vivo said no anyway.

The Data Xiaomi’s Bet Is Racing Ahead Of

Here’s the tension nobody selling the rebound story wants to sit with. TrendForce, the semiconductor research firm whose pricing surveys set the reference point for the whole industry, published its own third-quarter forecast on July 3. It does not show a reversal.

Read the table straight and the gap is obvious. TrendForce’s own third-quarter survey still has both DRAM and NAND contract prices climbing, just at a fraction of the roughly 60% jumps recorded in the second quarter. Xiaomi’s shipment math needs that deceleration to become an actual reversal, and soon. The data it’s leaning on doesn’t say that yet.

The Chips Going to AI Servers Instead of Phones

Understanding why prices haven’t reversed means following the wafers, not the headlines. Samsung, SK Hynix and Kioxia have all been shifting production capacity toward higher-margin server DRAM and high bandwidth memory (HBM), the chip type used to feed AI accelerators, at the direct expense of the consumer-grade memory that goes into phones.

Market researcher Omdia’s figures, cited in supply chain reporting, quantify the shift for 2026:

• Samsung: NAND wafer output cut to about 4.68 million, down from 4.9 million in 2025.
• SK Hynix: NAND wafer output cut to roughly 1.7 million, down from about 1.9 million.
• Kioxia: NAND wafer output adjusted to 4.69 million, down from 4.8 million.
• Micron: locked in 16 long-term supply agreements with customers as of its latest earnings release, a structure that favors big-volume buyers over smaller phone brands.

That reallocation is also why suppliers have room to negotiate. SK Hynix’s DRAM gross margin reportedly surged past 90% in the second quarter, near cyclical peak levels. A supplier sitting on those margins can absorb a rejected quote far more easily than a phone brand can absorb another cost spike. Apple has been lobbying Washington for its own workaround, pushing for access to blacklisted Chinese memory suppliers, a sign the squeeze reaches even the top of the market.

Who’s Winning and Losing the Memory Squeeze?

The memory crunch split the smartphone market into clear winners and losers in the second quarter, with Apple and Samsung gaining share through stable pricing and captive supply while Xiaomi, OPPO and vivo took double-digit hits. Xiaomi’s own first-quarter shipments already showed the damage: 33.8 million units, down 19.2% from a year earlier.

Global smartphone shipments fell as much as 11% year over year in the second quarter, according to preliminary Counterpoint Research data, marking the weakest second quarter in 13 years. IDC’s preliminary count showed a 6.7% decline to 277.5 million units, while Omdia’s survey put the drop closer to 4%. The trackers disagree on magnitude, not direction.

The divergence between the high-end and low-end markets accelerated further in Q2

Francisco Jeronimo, a vice president at International Data Corporation (IDC), made that assessment of the quarter’s results. Samsung’s own component costs are still working through its lineup too, a dynamic already reshaping Galaxy S26 pricing strategy even as the company gains overall share.

Xiaomi President Lu Weibing said in April that a standard 12GB RAM and 512GB storage package was costing the company an extra 1,500 yuan (about $210) compared with 2025. Those bills are what forced the two earlier cuts. They’re also exactly what has to fall for the new target to hold.

If the Rebound Comes Late, Xiaomi Pays Twice

Ramping budget phone production only pays off if component costs cooperate on Xiaomi’s timeline. If they don’t, the company repeats the exact pattern from January and June: order volumes locked in, costs still rising, another public retreat.

Where the outlook splits:

• Xiaomi’s internal view: supply chain sources say the company expects to secure DRAM and NAND at lower prices again before the end of the year.
• TrendForce’s own forecast: DRAM and NAND contract prices keep rising through Q3, with the market described as extremely tight.
• Broader research firm warnings: the memory shortage could persist into 2027, with the market’s split between winners and losers continuing through the second half of 2026.

The memory crunch has already spread past phones. Rising component costs pushed at least one handheld gaming device’s price higher, showing the same shortage reshaping budgets well outside the smartphone aisle.

Samsung and SK Hynix still control roughly 90% of the global DRAM market between them, giving them the leverage to set the pace no matter what OPPO, vivo or Xiaomi decide to reject. The next real test lands when Q3 contracts are finalized and the industry finds out whether this round of pushback actually moved the price, or just moved the argument.

Frequently Asked Questions

How much more expensive has phone memory gotten in 2026?

Gartner projected in early 2026 that combined DRAM and SSD prices could climb as much as 130% between the end of 2025 and the end of 2026, a scale that puts Xiaomi’s 1,500 yuan per-unit cost increase in context rather than isolation.

Does the memory crunch affect laptops and gaming devices too?

Yes. TrendForce’s own Q3 2026 survey notes that notebook manufacturers are still replenishing inventory even as higher memory costs feed through to retail notebook prices, a trend the firm expects to weigh on PC shipment volumes through the rest of the year.

How profitable has the memory shortage been for chipmakers?

Very. Analysts estimate SK Hynix’s DRAM gross margin surged past 90% in the second quarter of 2026, near cyclical peak levels, which is part of why suppliers have room to keep pushing price increases even after some get rejected.

What is HBM, and why does it matter for phone prices?

High Bandwidth Memory (HBM) is the specialized DRAM used inside AI accelerator chips, and it carries far higher margins per wafer than the mobile DRAM in a budget phone. That gap is why Samsung, SK Hynix and Kioxia have been shifting production capacity toward HBM and server memory, leaving less factory space for the chips phones actually need.