Nothing just canceled its next CMF Phone, and the reason has nothing to do with the phone itself.
The company’s co-founder, Akis Evangelidis, confirmed on X that CMF won’t launch a new phone this year, citing the memory crisis, which appears to be worsening with each passing day.
So what exactly happened to the next CMF Phone?
The CMF Phone 2 Pro, released in April 2025, sold in the US for $279. In my opinion, it was one of the best-value Android phones at the time.
Following the usual annual cycle, buyers were expecting a successor this year. While the company was working on a successor, it couldn’t put together “a phone that feels like a genuine step forward at a price that makes sense for CMF.”
In response to a comment on his X post, Evangelidis mentioned that the CMF Phone 2 Pro, with the exact same specifications, would cost between $320 and $370 if it were launched today. The successor, with upgraded hardware, would have commanded an even higher price tag.
How could this affect your next smartphone purchase?
DRAM and NAND prices have been climbing sharply, driven by supply constraints and the enormous appetite AI data centers have for memory.
Nothing CEO Carl Pei warned publicly last week that memory now accounts for more than 50% of a smartphone’s total hardware bill. It is even more expensive than the processor and the display.
To give you some perspective, Nothing is a relatively small company doing fewer numbers than industry giants like Samsung and Apple. Recent estimates suggest the iPhone 18 Pro could be priced between $1,299 and $1,399 at launch, a $200 to $300 increase over the iPhone 17 Pro’s price.
If memory prices stay elevated, the impact on your next phone purchase could be unavoidable, especially in entry-level smartphones.
Budget smartphone makers would either ship fewer RAM upgrades at the same price, launch more devices with 6GB of RAM instead of 8GB, hold storage tiers at 128 GB for longer, or simply pass those costs on to buyers through higher prices.
Nothing may be the first major brand to say this out loud, but it almost certainly will not be the last. And honestly, being straight with buyers about why a product is not coming is more than most companies are willing to do.