Rising RAM prices have killed Nothing's planned CMF Phone 2 Pro successor, leaving no CMF smartphone for 2026. Akis Evangelidis, co-founder and head of the CMF sub-brand, announced on X that the company has cancelled the handset because memory costs make a financially workable successor impossible. "We were working on a successor but with memory prices where they're right now, we can’t build a phone that feels like a genuine step forward at a price that makes sense for CMF," he wrote. Nothing's wider leadership framed the move as part of an industry squeeze on budget phones, with founder Carl Pei noting rapid memory-price rises during recent product cycles.

The decision removes Nothing's lowest-priced, design-forward option from the market, because component memory costs have soared and would force a higher retail price. Evangelidis made the announcement on X, saying a phone with the same specs as the Phone 2 Pro would cost substantially more in the current component market, a change that would break CMF's low-price positioning.

Evangelidis was blunt about the trade-off. "We were working on a successor but with memory prices where they are right now, we can’t build a phone that feels like a genuine step forward at a price that makes sense for CMF," he wrote. The cancelled device had been under development as the next budget offering, aimed at buyers who want Nothing's pared-back design without the premium price tag.

Memory costs reshaping the low end

Nothing's chief executive Carl Pei has framed the trend as an industry-wide problem rather than a brand-specific failure. Pei said memory costs rose sharply during the Phone 4A development cycle, adding that "for Phone 4A, memory costs doubled between when we decided to build the device and when it launched. They’ve doubled again since." He described memory as "now the most expensive component in a smartphone."

The pressure is coming from outside the handset market as well. Nothing says RAM has been bid up by other sectors, including AI infrastructure, a shift that pushes memory up the bill-of-materials for some handset models.

Mastheads

That altered cost profile makes low-end phones harder to deliver at the prices customers have come to expect.

Industry write-ups and Nothing's own estimate indicate that matching the previous model's specification would be substantially more expensive in today's component market, reinforcing why the sub-brand judged a 2026 handset untenable without eroding its price identity.

CMF paused, Nothing still launching

Nothing presented the cancellation as a deliberate choice to preserve CMF's identity rather than a pause for the whole company. Evangelidis said the team preferred not to ship a product that wouldn't represent a genuine step forward or that would require raising the price beyond CMF's positioning. He also hinted that design work and some CMF engineering could be redeployed into other products or into the main Nothing line.

For consumers the immediate consequence is straightforward: there will be no CMF phone to buy this year, removing the company's lowest-priced option temporarily. But Nothing signalled it will continue to develop and sell other phones and hardware, and future mid-range or budget devices may appear under the parent Nothing name rather than the CMF label.

Evangelidis added that CMF still has "several new products launching as well as some entirely new categories," and that "the smartphone launch season at Nothing isn't over yet," indicating the company plans other releases even while shelving a CMF handset. Nothing didn't publish firm dates for those teased launches, but it committed explicitly that CMF will ship new non-phone products this year and that the Nothing brand will continue to introduce smartphones and other hardware.

The choice illuminates a wider tension in the industry. Brands that built low-cost lines around tight hardware specifications now face a market where one major component has become unusually expensive. For a sub-brand whose selling point is price plus distinctive design, raising the sticker significantly would be to erode the very advantage it offers.

Nothing's move is therefore both defensive and strategic. By pausing the CMF handset, the company preserves the sub-brand's identity while keeping options open to fold engineering and design work into other products or the main line. That approach leaves Nothing able to react if memory prices stabilise or if new supply dynamics make a budget handset workable again.

Related Articles

Nothing says CMF will still ship non-phone products this year, and that the 'smartphone launch season' at Nothing is not over.

This article was created with AI assistance.