There's a new casualty of the global NAND flash memory shortage: CMF's next phone. The current CMF Phone 2 Pro offers stunning value for money, being one of very few phones to offer a telephoto camera module in a phone priced at less than $300/£250. That phone launched in April 2025, so we were eagerly awaiting the follow-up - the CMF Phone 3 Pro - to drop very soon.
Sadly that won't now happen, as Nothing’s co-founder Akis Evangelidis has confirmed the phone has been scrapped:
“…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.”
That said, he goes on to say that other new CMF products are still planned, including some “entirely new categories”. Whether that means a new CMF phone at a higher price point is coming remains to be seen, though such a product would be risky, as a higher-priced CMF phone would potentially encroach on Nothing's market segment. So as it stands, don't expect a new sub $300 CMF phone any time soon, as the RAM crisis is showing no sign of abating.
Why is flash memory in such short supply? It's all thanks to the proliferation of AI. AI data processing centers devour high-bandwidth memory and fast SSD storage, causing AI companies to buy up huge stocks of solid state memory. This in turn is having a knock-on effect in other sectors that require DRAM and NAND flash memory, such as the memory card, portable storage, and even phone industries. These sectors have to fight for the remaining memory stock after the AI tech giants have paid top dollar to fuel their data centers. And when demand is high, prices go up. When you then have a budget product like the CMF Phone 3 Pro that must meet a strict price point, the only option is to discontinue the product, as hiking the retail price to cover the increased component cost isn't an option.
