Realme has stopped producing smartphones for China and will launch no new models there, ending its domestic expansion as parent company Oppo consolidates overlapping brands and redirects resources overseas.

AI-driven memory demand is raising smartphone and PC costs, weakening mass-market sales and widening the gap between premium brands and manufacturers reliant on lower-priced devices.

As the AI boom keeps memory shortages running hot, steep price hikes for smartphones in the second half of 2026 are coming into view. Global market researchers have issued increasingly bleak forecasts, warning that "chipflation" could last through 2027 and that surging memory prices are already lifting the cost of consumer devices.

China's smartphone industry is turning agentic AI into its next growth narrative, with ZTE's Nubia, StepFun and Honor presenting sharply different visions of how phones should plan tasks, coordinate apps and process personal data.