Chips down for the budget phone as memory crunch bites

The artificial intelligence boom has begun to exact a visible toll on the world’s smartphone industry — and Indian buyers are squarely in the line of fire.

While India-specific figures are not yet available, China’s three largest Android makers — Xiaomi, Oppo and Vivo — have slashed their 2026 global shipment targets by as much as 30%, according to a Nikkei Asia report this week, as memory chips are diverted wholesale to Ai data centres.

In India, the crisis was already visible and is expected to worsen further. Smartphone shipments in India fell 3% year-on-year in the January–March quarter, the market’s weakest showing in six years,