- Current DRAM shortage will also affect TVs
- Expect cheaper TVs to see price hikes first
- There’s no sign the shortage is ending anytime soon
Samsung says it cannot rule out a price hike for new TVs due to the ongoing shortage of memory chips. Speaking to PK Press Club, co-CEO TM Roh said of the shortage: “As this situation is unprecedented, no company is safe from its impact.” He added that the shortage was affecting everything from cell phones to consumer electronics – not just televisions but also household appliances.
Samsung is the world’s largest TV manufacturer and therefore has purchasing power that its smaller competitors lack. like other big players like Apple, it locks in supply months and years in advance, making it less prone to short-term problems.
However, Roh admitted that some impact on prices was “inevitable” as the shortage persists. So if you’re thinking about buying one of the best TVs, especially in the entry- or mid-range part of the market, you might want to make your choice sooner rather than later.
What is causing the memory chip shortage?
As we reported in December 2025, several factors are contributing to a severe shortage of memory chips. Almost all modern system memory and many solid-state drives use DRAM chips, and demand was already growing when the AI boom began.
Training AI requires tons of memory, and whenever high demand meets limited capacity, prices start to skyrocket — just like they did when COVID caused chip factories to shut down or when crypto miners started sucking up all the graphics cards. And because there is so much money flowing into AI, chipmakers are shifting focus to focus on AI’s very hungry caterpillars, the data centers.
As IDC explained in December 2025: “Instead of expanding conventional DRAM and NAND used in smartphones, PCs, and other consumer electronics, major memory manufacturers have shifted their production toward memory used in AI data centers, such as high-capacity, high-bandwidth (HBM) DDR5.
IDC continues: “AI servers and enterprise environments require significantly more memory per system than consumer devices, so AI development is taking up a disproportionate share of global capacity and creating shortages…this is not simply a cyclical shortage caused by a mismatch between supply and demand, but a potentially permanent strategic reallocation of global silicon wafer capacity.”
This will likely seriously affect the smartphone market in 2026 and beyond, as memory accounts for up to 20% of the hardware cost of a mid-range phone and 10-15% of a flagship. As a result, we are already seeing a decline in smartphone specifications.
The effect on TVs will likely be less dramatic than on devices such as PCs and smartphones, because they use less RAM for memory and storage; that RAM also represents a much smaller proportion of the overall component cost, as the panel is by far the most expensive component.
That said, profit margins in the TV business are already exceptionally low, so even the biggest brands don’t have much wiggle room if component costs rise significantly. And this is especially true in the most affordable segment of the market, where margins are thinnest. As shortages continue, it’s cheaper TVs that are likely to see the first price increases.
The best TVs for every budget
Follow TechRadar on Google News And add us as your favorite source to get our news, reviews and expert opinions in your feeds. Make sure to click the Follow button!
And of course you can too follow TechRadar on TikTok for news, reviews, unboxings in video form and receive regular updates from us on WhatsApp Also.
