Samsung, LG raise laptop prices twice in three months

The AI Tax: Why Your Next Gadget Will Cost More

For years, the cost of consumer electronics followed a predictable path: technology improved, and prices eventually stabilized or dropped. However, a tectonic shift in the semiconductor industry is flipping this script. We are entering an era where the demand for artificial intelligence (AI) is directly inflating the price of your laptop, and smartphone.

The culprit is a strategic pivot by the world’s leading memory producers. Samsung, SK Hynix, and Micron—who control roughly 90% of global DRAM production—are channeling their investments into High-Bandwidth Memory (HBM) designed for AI applications. While this fuels the AI revolution, it comes at a steep cost to general-purpose chips used in the devices we use every day.

The Laptop Price Surge: A Case Study in Scarcity

The impact of the memory shortage is most visible in the premium notebook market. Industry giants like Samsung and LG have been forced to raise prices multiple times in short windows to offset inflating component costs.

Take the Samsung Galaxy Book 6 Pro (32GB RAM, 1TB SSD) as an example. In South Korea, this model now retails for 4.19 million won (approximately $2,847), a staggering jump from the 2.81 million won price point seen last year. Higher-end models, such as the Galaxy Book 6 Ultra, are starting as high as 5.53 million won.

LG has seen similar trends with the 2026 Gram Pro 16-inch. After launching in January at 3.14 million won—already higher than its predecessor—the price climbed another 400,000 won by April, reaching 3.54 million won.

The DDR5 Price Spiral

The underlying cause is the skyrocketing cost of DDR5 modules. Data from Omdia highlights a worrying trajectory for 16GB DDR5 modules:

• Q4 2025: $72.20
• Q1 2026: $119.20
• Q4 2026 (Forecast): $167.60

With broad memory prices jumping 80% to 90% quarter-on-quarter in early 2026, manufacturers are struggling to maintain margins. TrendForce projects that for a mainstream $900 laptop, combined memory and CPU price increases could push retail prices up by nearly 40%.

Smartphones and the “Retroactive” Price Hike

It isn’t just laptops feeling the squeeze. The smartphone market is absorbing similar pressures. The Galaxy S26 series launched with price increases of roughly 100,000 won domestically and $100 in the United States for base and Plus variants.

In a rare move, prices were even raised retroactively in April for the Galaxy Z Fold7 and Flip7 foldables. This suggests that the volatility of the memory market is so extreme that launch-day pricing is no longer a safe bet for manufacturers.

Strategic Alliances: The Race for LPDDR Supply

The desperation for stable supply is leading to high-level diplomatic efforts in the tech world. Recently, Qualcomm CEO Cristiano Amon held closed-door meetings in Seoul with executives from Samsung Electronics, SK hynix, and LG Electronics.

These meetings, attended by leaders like LG Electronics CEO Lyu Jae-cheol and Samsung’s Foundry Business President Han Jin-man, are widely seen as a push to secure low-power double data rate (LPDDR) memory. As AI-specific memory for data centers creates a bottleneck, chip designers like Qualcomm must deepen foundry partnerships to ensure their application processors (APs) actually have the memory they require to function.

Market Outlook: The Danger of “Pulled-Forward” Demand

Interestingly, global PC shipments actually rose 3.2% year-on-year to 64.8 million units in Q1. While this looks like growth, industry experts warn it is actually “future demand being pulled forward.”

Consumers and businesses, fearing further price hikes, are buying hardware now. However, this creates a risk of a market contraction. Once retail prices cross “psychological thresholds,” spending is expected to shrink across both the private and public sectors, potentially leading to a slump in demand once the initial panic-buying phase ends.