The memory crisis just split the smartphone market in two, with Apple and Samsung standing on the good half

Global smartphone shipments fell 4% year-on-year in 2Q26. Apple posted its best second quarter ever. Both of those things are true, and the gap between them is the story of the year. Omdia’s latest research, published today from London, puts the blame squarely on the memory crisis. DRAM and NAND supply has been vacuumed up by AI data centres, component costs have gone vertical, and the phone industry is now sorting itself into vendors who can absorb that and vendors who can’t. Apple and Samsung are absorbing it. Almost everyone else is drowning in it. Note: images are having an…