In the spring of 2026, the market for recycling used mobile phones experienced a boom, with recycling prices generally on the rise. Affected by the global shortage of memory chips, the market for recycling old mobile phones in places like Jinan unexpectedly heated up, with recycling prices being adjusted daily and some models seeing price increases of nearly eightfold. Whether or not they can be turned on, used mobile phones, even those with broken screens or completely non-functional, can now be sold for money. After the Spring Festival, the recycling market gradually heated up, with even old feature phones that were previously unwanted for 5 yuan now selling for 10 to 15 yuan. Ms. Wang, a resident, sold two old mobile phones she had stored away for 350 yuan, and some netizens even traded in seven old mobile phones for a second-hand iPhone 11. Recyclers said that used mobile phones mainly flow to places like Shenzhen, where the upstream industrial chain dismantles them for core components such as memory modules and motherboards, and even damaged memory modules can be repaired. This round of price increases primarily depends on the popularity of chips and the amount of memory, driven by the rapid development in the AI field and the strong demand for storage products. AI servers require eight times the storage of ordinary servers, prompting major manufacturers like Samsung, Micron, and SK Hynix to shift their production capacity towards high-end AI storage products such as HBM, while reducing or even halting production of traditional products like DDR4. This has led to a shortage of consumer-grade storage products and further price increases. Dismantled chips offer significant advantages in terms of cost and supply and have a wide range of applications. They can be used for memory expansion and fault repair in old mobile phones and laptops, as well as supplied to manufacturers of smart hardware such as smart door locks, surveillance cameras, in-car infotainment systems, and industrial control motherboards as low-cost core storage components. According to TrendForce data, the spot price of memory chips has increased by more than 300% over the past three months, and it is expected that DRAM prices will rise by 80% to 95% in the first quarter of 2026. Recyclers analyze that, based on the current market conditions, prices may continue to rise, but the duration of this trend remains uncertain.