ATLANTA — People spend hundreds on smart devices and personal computers. But these devices could get even pricier in the new year, thanks to the data demands from artificial intelligence.
The average selling price for smartphones is expected to reach $465 next year, according to the International Data Corporation, which tracks the industry.
The rapid expansion of AI data centers, which require large amounts of memory, is creating a shortage of memory used for consumer devices such as cellphones and personal computers.
Instead of expanding production of the kind of memory used in smartphones, PCs and other consumer devices, “major memory makers have shifted production toward memory used in AI data centers, such as high-bandwidth (HBM) and high-capacity DDR5,” IDC said in its analysis released Thursday.
The smartphone market is expected to have grown 1.5% in 2025. The organization says that growth in units won’t last in part because of “the ongoing global memory shortage,” IDC said.
Because of the rise in prices, IDC expects a soft decline in units sold and a related 1% decline in shipments. But the higher prices will also drive the market to a record-high value of $578.9 billion.
IDC said AI demands for data could cause “a potentially permanent, strategic reallocation of the world’s silicon wafer capacity.”
The experts also said PC vendors are signaling they will increase prices in 2026.
“The timing of the memory shortage creates a perfect storm for the PC industry, colliding with the Microsoft Windows 10 end-of-life refresh cycle and the AI PC marketing push,” the IDC report said.
TrendForce said the related memory “price surge in 1Q26 exceeded prior expectations,” and they expect the data market challenges to have a lasting effect on consumer products.
A report from McKinsey and Co. indicates that global investment in data center infrastructure could reach nearly $7 trillion by 2030.
CNN Newsource contributed to this report.
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