If you are waiting for a sale before buying your next phone, 2026 has an unwelcome surprise. The same handset could cost more than last year's model and ship with less memory inside it. The reason has almost nothing to do with the phone in your hand and everything to do with the artificial intelligence boom happening in data centres far from Malaysia.
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Dinesh Raj chevron_right
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The memory squeeze
Reporting across the tech press this month points to a sharp reversal in smartphone specifications. Android Authority notes that budget phones, which had finally settled on 8GB of RAM as standard, are expected to slide back to 4GB or 6GB, while the number of models offering 12GB has reportedly fallen by more than 40 percent. GSMArena reports that 16GB phones, until recently a flagship selling point, are on track to become a rare luxury.
The cause is money. Digital Trends cites a Google executive who put the price of the RAM inside a phone at roughly four times higher than a year ago, with the cost of a 16GB memory package climbing from about US$45 to US$192. TechTimes estimates memory now accounts for close to 60 percent of the build cost of a sub-US$400 phone, nearly double what it was six months earlier. TechRadar reports that memory makers such as Samsung and SK Hynix are steering production away from phone RAM toward the pricier high-bandwidth memory that AI servers devour.
What it means for Malaysian buyers
Malaysia's phone market is built on the mid-range. The band between roughly RM1,000 and RM2,500, where models like the Redmi Note 15 Pro (around RM1,399) and the Vivo V70 (around RM1,999) compete, is where most buyers actually shop. That is exactly the segment where a memory squeeze bites hardest, because there is no premium margin to absorb it. Expect the choice to arrive as one of two quiet compromises: a slightly higher price tag, or the same price with a step down in RAM, storage or camera hardware.
This is the second supply shock to reach Malaysian shelves this year. We wrote earlier this month about a Snapdragon price increase that is nudging buyers toward cheaper MediaTek alternatives, and about how the AI data centre boom is bidding up the graphics and memory chips that consumers rely on. The memory story is the same pattern reaching phones: hyperscalers pay more for chips than you can, so you get whatever is left.
The AI paradox
There is an awkward contradiction in all of this. The headline feature on every 2026 phone is on-device AI, and running those models locally is hungry for exactly the resource being cut. An on-device assistant can reserve several gigabytes of RAM just to hold its model in memory. A phone marketed on its AI smarts that ships with 6GB instead of 8GB may struggle to keep that assistant and your everyday apps alive at once, which shows up as slower app reloads and stuttering features.
For Malaysian buyers the practical advice is simple. The RAM figure on the box is no longer a clean measure of value, so a well-optimised 8GB phone can outrun a poorly managed one with more on paper. If you have your eye on a current model with generous memory, buying now rather than waiting for the next generation may get you more phone for your ringgit. And be wary of paying a premium for an AI phone whose memory has quietly been trimmed below what those features actually need.
The AI gold rush was always going to reach consumers eventually. In 2026 it arrives in the most personal way possible: the phone in your pocket, a little more expensive and a little less capable than you expected.
Images courtesy of appshunter.io and Tommy L on Unsplash.
