Smartphone Market Faces 'Worst Year on Record' Due to Iran, Memory Crunch
The smartphone market is projected to experience its worst year on record, with shipments expected to decline by 13.9%. This downturn is attributed to the ongoing US-Iran conflict and an AI-driven memory shortage. As a result, smartphone vendors are facing increased costs and are likely to raise prices while focusing on higher-end models.
- ▪IDC forecasts a 13.9% decline in global smartphone shipments this year due to the US-Iran war and memory shortages.
- ▪Rising gas and oil prices are increasing transportation costs for smartphone vendors.
- ▪The average selling price of smartphones is expected to rise to a record $550, up $100 from last year.
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| Original publisher | PCMag |
| Canonical URL | https://www.pcmag.com/news/smartphone-market-faces-worst-year-on-record-due-to-iran-memory-crunch |
| Publication time | Tue, 26 May 26 21:55:48 +0000 |
| Retrieval time | 2026-05-26T22:02:54.514Z |
| Last seen | 2026-05-26T22:02:54.514Z |
| Headline source | Publisher (no WeSearch rewrite) |
| Excerpt source | publisher body |
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| Summary | WeSearch · cerebras-chat (WeSearch summarizer) |
| Summary source text | contentText |
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| Cluster | q0oLcZuc01vW |
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| Ranking reason | Story pages are not engagement-ranked. Hub feeds use recency, with optional source-diversified chronological ordering (cap consecutive stories per source). No personalized ranking. |
| Publisher visit | Yes — open original |
| Substitutes article? | No — link-out required for full text |
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| Retrieval / RAG | May the content be exposed for third-party retrieval-augmented generation? | Not asserted |
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Opening excerpt (first ~120 words) tap to expand
Yikes: The smartphone market is expected to suffer an even deeper slump due to the ongoing US-Iran conflict, according to research firm IDC. IDC already predicted that global smartphone shipments would fall 12.9% this year, citing the ongoing AI-driven memory shortage. But on Tuesday, the company forecasted an even worse decline of 13.9%, blaming the US-Iran war for further sapping demand. “The smartphone market is headed into its worst year on record,” IDC said in a research note, calling it “the steepest annual contraction in smartphone history,” assuming the projection holds.
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Excerpt limited to ~120 words for fair-use compliance. The full article is at PCMag.
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