Nothing shelves 2026 CMF phone as memory costs rise
Nothing co-founder Akis Evangelidis said higher memory prices made a new CMF handset impractical at the brand’s target price.
By James Whitfield · Staff Writer
2 min read
Nothing will not release a new CMF phone this year after rising RAM costs made the project too expensive for its budget-focused line, co-founder Akis Evangelidis said on X. The decision shows how higher memory prices are starting to affect consumer gadgets beyond PCs and components.
Evangelidis said Nothing had been developing a successor to the CMF Phone 2 Pro, but the company concluded it could not deliver a meaningful upgrade while keeping the price in line with CMF’s positioning. He said memory prices were the reason the device no longer worked commercially for the brand.
RAM costs hit Nothing’s phone plans
The CMF Phone 2 Pro was the model that would have been followed by this year’s planned handset, according to The Verge. Nothing has not announced a replacement timetable for the CMF phone line.
Evangelidis said CMF still has other products coming, including launches in new categories. He also suggested that Nothing’s broader smartphone plans for the year are not finished, though he did not name any specific models in the post cited by The Verge.
The canceled CMF handset follows comments from Nothing CEO and co-founder Carl Pei about memory costs affecting another phone in the company’s lineup. Pei said last week that the company’s Phone 4A was hit by higher RAM expenses after the device was approved for development, according to The Verge.
Pei said memory costs doubled between the time Nothing decided to build the Phone 4A and its launch, then doubled again afterward, according to The Verge. He also said memory has become the priciest component in a smartphone.
Broader pressure across hardware
Nothing is not the only company pointing to memory costs as a pricing problem. Apple CEO Tim Cook said earlier this week that Apple will raise prices because RAM expenses have become unsustainable, according to The Verge.
The comments from Evangelidis, Pei and Cook put phone makers among the companies publicly linking product and pricing decisions to the global memory shortage. The Verge has tracked the issue as a broader rise in RAM prices affecting multiple categories of technology products.
For CMF, the immediate result is a skipped phone release cycle. Evangelidis framed the decision as a trade-off between launching a new device and maintaining the brand’s value proposition, saying the company could not make a phone that advanced the lineup at a price that fit CMF.
This story draws on original reporting from The Verge.