"Every form of digital storage media is in demand due to the rise of AI. Samsung has increased the price of its NAND flash memory by 60 percent since September. With full order books, the South Korean company and its competitors SK Hynix and Micron are sitting pretty for 2026. The consequences of this will be widely felt. Reuters reported on Friday that Samsung had implemented the price increase."
"Not only NAND flash memory, but also DRAM (or system memory) is on the rise. In just a few weeks, the price of RAM has nearly doubled for consumers, while Reuters reports a slightly more modest increase. A single 32GB DDR5 module from Samsung has risen from $149 in September to $239 in new contracts. 16GB and 128GB modules also became 50 percent more expensive."
"Phison, which manufactures NAND flash storage controllers, assesses the situation surrounding the price increases as more serious. From July to November of this year, the price of 1 TB of TLC NAND rose from $4.80 to $10.70, according to Phison CEO Khein-Seng Pua. According to him, there may continue to be shortages of NAND flash over the next decade. There are two explanations for this long timeframe."
Surging AI demand has driven strong increases in both NAND flash and DRAM pricing. Samsung raised NAND prices about 60 percent since September while DRAM prices have climbed sharply, with one source reporting a 171.8 percent year‑on‑year rise from Q3 2024 to Q3 2025. Consumer RAM costs jumped: a 32GB DDR5 module moved from $149 to $239 in new contracts, and several module sizes rose roughly 30–50 percent. Phison reports 1TB TLC NAND rising from $4.80 to $10.70 between July and November and warns of potential NAND shortages lasting up to a decade due to long lead times to add fab capacity and reluctance to overbuild if AI demand cools. The memory price surge will ripple across virtually every sector that relies on memory.
Read at Techzine Global
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