If you are dreaming of buying the next Samsung phone or laptop, then this news is for you. More than 48,000 employees of Samsung Electronics, the world’s largest memory chip maker, are going to go on a historic 18-day strike. This strike is not a minor protest. This will be the biggest strike in the company’s 50-year history and it could affect not only Samsung but technology lovers all over the world. The question is, what difference will the strike by South Korean company make to you in India?

Why is there a strike in the world’s second largest mobile manufacturing company?

This entire controversy is about performance bonus. Actually, due to the boom of Artificial Intelligence (AI), Samsung is getting huge demand for semiconductor chips. The company’s operating profit has increased by more than eight and a half times as compared to the first quarter of last year. The company became the second Asian company in the world whose market value crossed 1 trillion dollars (about Rs 96.93 lakh crore). But the employees say that the company is not sharing these record profits with them properly.

Currently, Samsung caps the performance bonus at 50 percent of the employee’s annual salary. In such a situation, employees are making three big demands:

• this cap should be completely finished
• Employees should get 15 percent of operating profit as bonus.
• The entire method of bonus calculation should be transparent and legally institutionalized.

The real root of the dispute is Samsung’s rival company SK Hynix. SK Hynix last year abolished the 10-year-old cap on its bonuses and started paying 10 percent of operating profits as bonus to its employees. Samsung employees say that because of this, SK Hynix employees are earning three times more bonus than them.

What happened in the conversation so far?

The South Korean government also used all its strength to avert this strike. President Lee Jae-myung himself told a cabinet meeting that workers’ rights should not be “weaponized for collective gain,” and Prime Minister Kim Min-seok warned that the strike could cause “deep wounds to the entire national economy.”

Despite this the matter did not work out. On May 20, talks brokered by the National Labor Relations Commission broke down. The union accepted the commission proposal, but Samsung management rejected it. Samsung said the union’s demands “violate the company’s core principles of performance-based compensation.” After this, Labor Minister Kim Young-hoon himself tried to mediate at the last moment, but no solution was found.

The court also intervened in this matter. On Samsung’s petition, Suwon District Court ordered that 7,087 employees will have to remain on duty during the strike for safety and essential work.

What impact will the strike at Samsung have on the world?

This is the most important question but there is no need to panic, because the prices of Samsung devices will not increase immediately. Samsung and other big tech companies currently have buffer stock of chips, due to which there will be no impact on production for a few weeks. But if the strike continues for full 18 days, the situation may change.

Samsung holds 36 percent of the global DRAM market and 32 percent of the NAND market. According to KB Securities analyst Jeff Kim, the 18-day strike could affect worldwide DRAM supply by 3 to 4 percent and NAND supply by 2 to 3 percent. These figures may seem small, but at a time when the market is already struggling with a supply shortage, they can push prices up sharply.

Chen Li-Bai, chairman of Taiwanese memory company ADATA, says that ‘prices will definitely increase’ and memory chip shortages will persist in 2026 and 2027. Jordan Kline of Mizuho Securities estimates that memory supply will be much less than demand in 2026 and 2027. Research firm SemiAnalysis expects memory chip prices to more than double by the end of this year compared to 2025.

This will also have a deep impact on the economy of South Korea. Samsung alone accounts for about a quarter of the country’s total exports. According to an estimate, in the worst case, Korea’s GDP growth may be reduced by 0.5 percent and there may be a loss of up to 100 trillion won (about 67 billion dollars).

What will be the impact on Samsung lovers in India?

According to experts, this strike can prove to be a double blow for Indian customers:

1. Impact of chip shortage: India is already facing a serious shortage of memory chips. The prices of DRAM and NAND chips have increased four to five times in the last few quarters. The result is that the share of memory in the bill of materials of many devices has increased from 7-10 percent to 35 percent. Indian electronics manufacturers have reduced their production by 10 to 20 percent for the remaining period of 2026.
2. Direct hit on smartphone prices: All India Mobile Retail Association (AIMRA) has warned that the prices of 80 percent of smartphone models sold in India may soon increase, which may be up to 15 percent on an average. Samsung has already increased prices by 3 to 22 percent on many of its models, while other brands like Oppo (6-18%), Xiaomi (3-15%) and Realme (up to 12%) have also increased prices.

Apart from this, the rising prices of memory will have the biggest impact on budget smartphones and laptops priced below $500 (about Rs 42,000). The share of memory in the total cost of these devices has reached 25 percent, due to which companies are focusing on premium products instead of making entry-level devices. In India, smartphones priced at Rs 10,000 have directly reached Rs 14,000, that is, an increase of up to 40 percent.

Will Samsung phones made in India remain cheap?

Samsung’s world’s largest mobile plant is in Noida, Uttar Pradesh, where it has the capacity to make 12 crore phones annually. Galaxy S26 series is also being manufactured in this plant, but one important thing has to be understood here. This plant only does assembly work. The original memory chips come from Korean factories only. So even if the phone is made in Noida, Indian customers will also have to bear the impact of the rising price of the chip. Experts say that this shortage of memory chips is not likely to end before the end of 2027 or the beginning of 2028.

At present, talks are going on between Samsung and the union. The union has said that it will be ready for talks even during the strike. Samsung management has also said that there should not be a strike under any circumstances.