Samsung (SSNLF) said Thursday it expects weak smartphone demand in the first quarter due to seasonal factors and memory supply and pricing pressures, while noting that the ongoing AI boom should support favorable conditions across the memory market.

SEOUL (Reuters) -Samsung Electronics expects demand for memory chips for the global AI infrastructure build-out to far outstrip the company's supply, and said on Thursday it will focus on mass producing its most advanced chips to capitalise on the boom.

By 2026, peak on-device AI performance is forecast to reach around 100 TOPS, with nearly 90% of premium smartphones supporting on-device AI. In contrast, many mid-range devices priced between $100 and $500 are expected to rely more heavily on cloud-based AI processing to control costs.

Samsung is raising memory chip prices—up to 20% for DDR4 and 5% for DDR5—in anticipation of looming US tariffs, with stockpiling already underway. As the world’s largest memory supplier, Samsung’s move could trigger industry-wide price hikes ...

New information from China reveals that Radeon RX 9070 XT GPUs with Samsung memory are performing slower than expected. A Chinese reviewer, named “51972,” reported a significant performance drop in these GPUs that use GDDR6 memory chips from Samsung.

Investors in Apple, HP, Dell and other major hardware manufacturers may be worried about the rising memory prices. The increase in the cost of memory and storage components is reportedly putting pressure on hardware makers as higher expenses risk hurting ...