Memory price hikes impact smartphone manufacturing and AI data center CapEx

GF Securities analyzes the impact of increasing memory prices (LPDDR and NAND) on smartphone manufacturing costs and AI infrastructure. For smartphones, higher memory costs are squeezing manufacturer profits, leading to 'downgrading' trends in mid-to-low-end models and a revised down global smartphone shipment forecast for 2026. For AI infrastructure, rising memory costs are increasing the bill of materials for GB300 NVL72 racks and HGX 8-GPU B300 AI servers, as well as general-purpose servers. This is contributing to CapEx revisions by hyperscalers like Meta, with memory price increases adding approximately $1.8 billion per 1GW data center deployment. The analysis suggests that while server price hikes might benefit ODMs/OEMs in the short term, demand uncertainty from smaller cloud customers could temper this effect.