The Globe and Mail reports in its Friday edition that the global smart phone market is poised to suffer its biggest decline ever in 2026, sinking to a more than decade low in shipments, as surging memory chip prices drive up device costs. A Reuters dispatch to The Globe says smart phone shipments are expected to drop 12.9 per cent to 1.12 billion units, according to International Data Corp. The decline will hit low-end Android makers the hardest, while Apple and Samsung are positioned to gain market share as smaller rivals struggle or exit the market entirely, an IDC report said Thursday. "What we are witnessing is not a temporary squeeze, but a tsunami-like shock originating in the memory supply chain," said Francisco Jeronimo at IDC. A rapid build-out of artificial-intelligence infrastructure by tech firms such as Meta, Google and Microsoft has captured much of the memory chips supply, lifting prices as manufacturers prioritize components for higher-margin data centres over consumer devices. Memory chips, or DRAM, are crucial to smart phones as they allow power-hungry applications to run smoothly. Analysts have said rising component costs will force budget-device-focused companies to pass the expenses on to consumers.