Despite Galaxy S26 sales success, Samsung mobile chief warns of major losses

Smartphone makers have been forced to raise prices or reduce profits due to the RAM crisis. Samsung’s mobile division previously suggested that it could post a deficit, and the firm has now sounded the alarm on a full year of losses.

Samsung mobile chief TM Roh warned company executives that the smartphone division could see a full year of losses, according to Money Today (h/t: Jukan05 on Twitter), citing “industry sources.”

This would be seriously bad news for the division and would apparently be its first-ever annual loss. It also comes as Samsung’s memory manufacturing arm expects record-high profits.

The outlet also revealed a sobering perspective when it noted that NVIDIA’s upcoming Vera AI CPU will have 1.5TB of LPDDR5X RAM while its Vera Rubin NVL72 supercomputer will have 36 of these Vera CPUs.

“Considering that the Galaxy S26 Ultra is usually equipped with 12GB LPDDR5X, one AI supercomputer consumes the memory of about 4,600 smartphones,” it explained. It’s no wonder consumer tech companies are hiking prices and even canceling some releases as they struggle to secure RAM. Things aren’t likely to get better, either, as the outlet suggests RAM prices could increase by over 80% this quarter.

News of a potential full-year loss follows a report last month that Samsung’s mobile division had entered “emergency management” due to rising component prices and the possibility of a deficit. The mobile unit has also apparently ordered a 30% reduction in costs as part of this situation, along with economy-class flights instead of business-class seating.

The news also comes despite recent reports that Samsung is delivering impressive Galaxy S26 series sales. Counterpoint Research reported that early sales of the new Galaxy flagships were better than the Galaxy S25 series, with double-digit sales growth in the US and Western Europe.