Nothing has confirmed that the CMF Phone 3 Pro will not be launching this year, putting an end to speculation around a successor to last year's budget favourite. Co-founder Akis Evangelidis said rising memory prices have made it impossible to build a phone that offers a genuine upgrade while keeping costs low enough for the CMF brand.
The decision reflects a wider problem hitting smartphone makers, as soaring RAM prices driven by AI demand are squeezing margins across the industry, making affordable devices harder to justify.
Why Did Nothing Drop The CMF Phone 3 Pro Plan?
Posting on X, Evangelidis explained that the company had been working on a follow-up to the CMF Phone 2 Pro, but the economics no longer worked out. "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.
He added that other CMF products are still in the pipeline, including items in "entirely new categories," and that Nothing will launch new phones this year, just not under the CMF name, suggesting they will carry higher price tags.
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This isn't a complete surprise, as Counterpoint had earlier warned that budget phones could see a "permanent removal" from some markets, largely due to AI data centres driving up demand for RAM and squeezing supply.
Why Is Apple's Tim Cook Worried About Rising Costs Too?
Apple is facing a similar squeeze. Outgoing CEO Tim Cook told the Wall Street Journal that the company has been absorbing higher manufacturing costs for months but can no longer keep doing so. "We're doing our best to mitigate the huge increases that are being passed to us, and we've been trying to shield our customers from the increases, but the situation has become unsustainable," he said.
Cook also pointed to a supply-demand mismatch in the memory chip market, saying, "There's less supply at a time when consumers want devices and the memory guys are passing along huge price increases."
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Research firm Omdia expects average smartphone prices globally to rise by around 20% in 2026. Other companies, including Sony, Nintendo, and TSMC, have also flagged similar cost pressures recently.