Electronics industry on alert for looming memory chip crisis

Last week, the Brazilian Electrical and Electronics Industry Association (ABINEE) met with computer and mobile phone manufacturers to discuss the impact of possible memory chip supply restrictions on the Brazilian market, said Mauricio Helfer, ABINEE’s director of information technology, on Thursday (4).

“From the outlook we have, this may already affect the IT and mobile-phone markets,” Helfer said. “It’s truly a very complex situation and may be one of the major challenges we’ll face in 2026.”

Semiconductors were Brazil’s most imported products this year ($6 billion), with 45% coming from China.

The memory-chip crisis is reflected in the prices of computers and mobile devices. Desktop sales are expected to fall 35% in 2025 to 1.95 million units. Notebook sales (5.71 million) showed no growth, and tablet sales (3.71 million) are up 3%.

In the mobile-phone market, smuggled devices remain a challenge. They will account for 12% of sales this year, or 4.5 million units, down from 19% in 2024, according to IDC. “Acceptable would be zero,” said Luiz Claudio Carneiro, ABINEE’s director of mobile-communication devices.

He added that the main barrier is the “resistance” of online marketplaces to remove listings for illegally imported phones. “When a marketplace decides to take the matter to court, it signals it does not want to comply with the rules,” he said.

Legal market sales are expected to reach 31.9 million phones in 2025, a 1.9% annual decline.

The sector is also uneasy about the expiration of the provisional measure that created the Special Tax Regime for Datacenter Services (Redata), valid until February. Starting in 2026, Redata exempts taxes such as PIS, Cofins and import duties for data-center equipment without a local equivalent.

ABINEE argues that tax exemptions on imported chips must not harm domestic production. “Many stakeholders have raised concerns that Redata could turn into a form of digital extractivism,” said Helfer.

Brazil’s electronics industry is expected to close 2025 with revenues of R$270.8 billion, a real growth of 4% from 2024. In 2026, the sector forecasts revenues of R$289 billion, up 3% in real terms.

For ABINEE’s executive president Humberto Barbato, 2025 performance “was quite reasonable,” although high interest rates caused “some cooling in both employment and revenue.”

Industry investment totaled R$4.7 billion in 2025, up 9% from 2024. Imports rose 3%, reaching $49.1 billion in 2025. Over the same period, Brazilian exports totaled $7.9 billion, a 3% annual increase.