Earlier this year, Xiaomi cut targets twice. Now it’s raising them. That’s not a coincidence.
Something significant is shifting in the global memory market — and Xiaomi is betting on it. Xiaomi has raised its full-year 2026 smartphone shipment target from approximately 90 million units to 110 million units, marking an increase of roughly 16%. The incremental portion of this upward adjustment primarily comes from entry-level device models. The timing matters: due to the continuous shortfalls and rising costs of upstream memory chips, Xiaomi had twice lowered its shipment targets earlier this year. Reversing that trend — twice — is a meaningful signal.
Table of Contents
The Full Timeline: From Optimism to Crisis to Cautious Recovery
To understand why this matters, you need the context of how dramatic the reversal has been.
| Period | Xiaomi Shipment Target | Trigger |
|---|---|---|
| Early 2026 | ~135 million units | Initial annual target |
| January 2026 | Cut to ~95 million | Memory price hikes; 20%+ reduction |
| Mid 2026 | Cut again to ~90 million | Second consecutive reduction |
| July 21, 2026 | Raised to 110 million | Belief in memory price stabilisation |
In January 2026, due to memory price hikes across the upstream supply chain, multiple phone manufacturers including Xiaomi, OPPO, vivo, and Transsion cut their full-year handset order volumes, with Xiaomi’s reduction exceeding 20%.
Xiaomi, the world’s third-largest smartphone brand, had already set a 2026 forecast of around 135 million units, itself a sharp pullback from the 170 million handsets it shipped in 2025. The company shipped just 33.8 million smartphones in Q1 2026, a 19.2% decline from Q1 2025 — a direct consequence of rising component costs flowing through to retail prices and suppressing demand.
Why Xiaomi Thinks the Worst Is Over
A source close to Xiaomi said the upward revision of the shipment target stems from the company’s internal assessment that the current memory market trend is poised for a reversal.
The logic is demand-side resistance reaching its limit. The signal brought by Xiaomi’s upward adjustment of its shipment target is that downstream players in the memory industry are no longer willing to pay for the continuously climbing memory costs. Once the tolerance threshold on the demand side is reached, the momentum driving price hikes is likely to hit an inflection point.
Smartphone makers have been absorbing rising DRAM and NAND costs for over four consecutive quarters. The increases have started to soften — and manufacturers are now pushing back hard. We’ve already tracked how this cost pressure has fed through to Indian consumers, with OnePlus, OPPO, and Realme all hiking prices this month alone. Our smartphone price tracker for India has the full picture of how the memory crunch has reshaped what you pay at retail.
OPPO and Vivo Are Pushing Back on Samsung
Xiaomi’s revised optimism isn’t the only signal. OPPO and Vivo have refused Samsung’s Q3 2026 memory price hike proposal. The two smartphone vendors are “no longer willing to absorb rising memory costs.”
At the start of the month, Korean media reported that Samsung proposed a 20% price hike for memory orders in the third quarter of the year. Both OPPO and vivo rejected it — a significant act of collective resistance from two of the world’s largest smartphone brands. When major buyers refuse to accept supplier price increases simultaneously, it creates real pressure on the memory makers to moderate their terms.
The Honest Caveat: Analysts Aren’t So Sure
Xiaomi’s optimism isn’t universally shared. Gartner projected that the memory crunch will reduce global smartphone shipments by 8.4% in 2026 and push average smartphone prices 13% higher versus 2025 levels.
Gartner senior director analyst Ranjit Atwal put it starkly: “What’s happening this time around, compared to previous times that memory prices have gone up, is the extent with which prices of memory is increasing. Secondly is the length of time that we think prices will remain high. This one is looking like it won’t be until the end of 2027 before we get to any type of regional pricing.”
The structural reason is unchanged. A single Nvidia AI processor tray consumes low-power DRAM chips that would otherwise fill smartphone production allocations. Cloud service providers have locked up large portions of memory production through long-term agreements, pushing handset makers to the back of the queue. That dynamic hasn’t resolved — Xiaomi is betting on it softening, not disappearing.
What This Means for Indian Buyers
The near-term impact on Indian smartphone prices is limited. The bulk of the additional shipments are expected to come from the mass-market segment, which remains the foundation of Xiaomi’s global strategy. More entry-level Redmi devices entering the market could eventually apply downward pressure on sub-₹15,000 pricing — but only if memory costs actually ease as Xiaomi expects.
If Gartner is right and elevated memory prices persist until late 2027, Indian buyers should expect the current pricing environment to continue well into next year. For the best options available at every budget right now, our best smartphones to buy in India roundup is updated regularly as new devices land.
Bottom Line
Xiaomi raising its shipment target is a real signal — but it’s a bet, not a certainty. The company has been burned twice already this year by memory costs it didn’t see coming. The fact that OPPO and vivo are simultaneously refusing Samsung’s Q3 price hikes suggests the entire industry is pushing back in unison, which could genuinely force a moderation. Whether that pushback triggers a meaningful price drop — or just slows the rate of increase — will determine whether the memory crunch of 2026 becomes a footnote or a years-long structural problem for consumers.
Sources: Jiemian News via 36kr | GSMArena | Nikkei Asia via Yahoo Finance
