Nothing, the consumer-tech company known for its design-forward gadgets, won't release a new phone in its budget-focused CMF line this year — and it's blaming the soaring cost of memory chips.
According to The Verge, Nothing co-founder Akis Evangelidis announced in a post on X that a successor to the CMF Phone 2 Pro won't be arriving this year. "We were working on a successor but with memory prices where they are right now, we ca[n't]..." he wrote, in a quote cited by The Verge. The Verge framed the move as the latest casualty of what it calls "RAMageddon."
As Ben Schoon reports for 9to5Google, the CMF Phone series has put out two models so far and, at least for now, won't be getting a third. Schoon attributes the decision to rising material costs, which he says have essentially stalled the lineup.
The CMF brand is Nothing's value-oriented sub-line, aimed at shoppers looking for affordable handsets. Budget phones run on thin profit margins, which makes them especially sensitive to spikes in component prices — when a key part like RAM jumps in cost, there's little room to absorb it without raising the sticker price or pulling the product.
Why it matters: When memory prices climb high enough to make a company shelve an entire phone, it's a sign that chip-market pressures are no longer just an industry concern — they're starting to determine which affordable gadgets ordinary buyers can actually get.