The global smartphone market is in a state of concern. Shipments are declining overall, with large annual declines expected, mainly due to pressure from rising memory chip prices.
Samsung MX, the company’s mobile division, is feeling the pain in these situations despite its semiconductor division making money handing over a fistful of memory chips. MX is now expected to post annual losses and could lose more than $16 billion over the next few years.
However, the company is still in a better position to weather this storm compared to its competitors. See what happened with OnePlus. The company that was once a force in the market has now withdrawn from other important markets.
OnePlus has announced its complete withdrawal from North America and markets across Europe. The brand is not going away completely, however, efforts are now focused on China and India.
OnePlus builds its identity on flagship specs at a discount, a proposition that only works as long as the underlying components are cheap. They stopped getting cheap about a year ago, when memory chip prices started to rise under pressure from AI data centers that are buying DRAM and NAND faster than anyone can produce them.
The company’s exports to the US had declined and existing market forces meant that it was no longer worth continuing to fund the war. It would be reasonable to assume that Samsung is watching this with its own dismay, because the same memory problem that plagues the OnePlus business model is currently eating away at Samsung.
Samsung is both a victim and a beneficiary of the memory crisis
Samsung, in the same lead cycle, is one of the biggest victims of the memory shortage and one of its biggest beneficiaries.
The company’s mobile division doesn’t really get favorable prices for memory chips from its semiconductor division. It is fully exposed to the current market forces like everyone else. Its parent company would have to consider the same decision as OnePlus if it didn’t have the same cushion as Samsung.
Things will get worse before they get better. The division is already facing a tough task of raising prices throughout its 2026 folding schedule. Rumors also suggest that next year’s Galaxy S series could end up being more expensive.
This may result in the destruction of demand, because this price increase comes at a time when fears of global inflation are once again part of the conversation. The pent-up purchasing power will be reflected in its sales figures and will not be limited to its other more expensive models.
Samsung’s rating gives it a safety net that many other products don’t have
An independent phone company with MX’s projected numbers is likely to reduce debt and board pressure, perhaps considering a reversal of the type recently made by OnePlus. Samsung Electronics as a whole doesn’t do anything about it, because the worst MX quarter looks, the combined numbers look better in spite of you.
To call this a subsidy would be overstating it. Samsung’s chip and phone divisions reportedly don’t offer internal discounts, in part to avoid the kind of selection questions that could invite legal scrutiny.
Regardless of the amount of the annual loss of Samsung MX this year, it will not affect the financial picture of the company, which is why it does not face the difficult decision made by OnePlus.
Samsung doesn’t need to rescue its phone business from memory problems. It just needs to slow down for a few years while the rest of the building makes billions of memory chips, while its loss doesn’t even make a dent in the consolidated balance sheet.
That does not mean that there is no pain to be felt. The employees of the MX division are not happy that their bonuses are not really compared to the average bonus of about $340,000 received by each employee of the chip division. Their salaries, bonuses, and benefits will always be under pressure because they are all tied to the individual performance of the division, not the broader organization.
Perhaps they can take solace in the fact that their division will fight again one day, while some of its rivals will face the impossible choice of setting the money on fire or dropping out of the race altogether. OnePlus’ warning won’t be forgotten anytime soon.