The AI memory shortage has reached the phone-shop counter. T-Mobile is rolling out financing that lets customers walk out with a new handset for nothing down. It does this by spreading not just the device but its taxes and fees over three years. The reason its executives give is unusually blunt: chips are getting dearer, and phones with them.
The plan, EIP Flex 36, launches on Thursday. It rolls the phone, the taxes and the fees into 36 monthly payments, with nothing due at checkout. The pitch is that even “zero down” deals still make you hand over $100 or more in taxes and fees on the way out. T-Mobile says it is the only plan in wireless to fold those in.
Why phones cost more
The interesting part is the why, and T-Mobile does not hide it. Its executives blame the memory shortage. Chief executive Srini Gopalan told investors that memory-price increases are “resulting in higher prices for smartphones across the board,” a trend he expects to continue. His marketing chief, Andre Almeida, said taxes and fees have climbed with the phones, driven by demand for chips and memory.
That demand is the AI boom. The same scramble for memory that is filling data centres has pushed up the price of the chips inside everyday electronics. Apple has raised prices, AMD marked up graphics cards, and Fujifilm put up its cameras. Microsoft is even slimming Windows to fit machines with less RAM. Now the bill has landed at the carrier.
