Demand for Samsung’s Galaxy range of Android smartphones, championed by the current Galaxy S4 flagship, is now so high the company’s own memory production plants can’t keep up.

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This is according to a report from Digitimes, which cites anonymous industry sources for the tip. It’s said that Samsung is now buying in a lot more storage from other companies, including DRAM chips from Elpida Memory, as well as NAND flash and eMMC components from Toshiba.

While the surge in demand is good news for Samsung, the shortages do have potentially problematic ramifications for the broader mobile and computing tech industries. Digitimes writes:

 ‘Any shortage of DRAM and NAND flash chips at Samsung will affect the global memory supply/demand balance, given that the vendor’s in-house production capacity accounts for the biggest portion of the world total.’

 Or in other words, Samsung makes more memory than anyone else, so if it’s having problems meeting demand then other manufacturers are sure to follow.

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Digitimes also cites industry commentators who it claims have ‘questioned the motive of Samsung’s reported move to buy more memory products from outside suppliers.’

 It says that the company is buying more memory from Japanese manufacturers and appears to be reserving its own memory products for use within the Galaxy range devices. Simultaneously, it’s reported that Samsung is introducing strategies to ‘tightly controls its chip output’.

We’re not sure exactly what’s implied by this, but it sounds like there’s some suggestion Samsung is trying to corner the mobile memory market to become the dominant supplier.

 We’ve reached out to Samsung’s representatives for comment on this and for broader comment on the alleged supply shortages.

Samsung’s Galaxy range has quickly risen to prominence off the back of the success of its Galaxy S flagship models, including the Galaxy S2 and Galaxy S3, as well as the Galaxy Note devices such as the Galaxy Note 2.

There’s also huge anticipation for the Galaxy S4 and Galaxy Note 3.

Samsung has reportedly sold more than 100 million Galaxy S handsets since the range launched with the original Galaxy S in May 2010.