Tracking memory price increases across the last several quarters

The memory price surge plaguing the chip sector didn’t manifest overnight. Rather, it is the result of sequential quarterly increases and unprecedented demand coming from the AI sector. Each new wave has built on the last, and each is more difficult for OEMs to absorb than the one before.  

Understanding how prices have moved, why they are on the rise, and what’s driving the sustained market pressure is a strategic requirement for any organization with memory on its bill of materials. That said, here is a recap of everything that’s happened over the past few quarters.

Q4 2025: The rally begins accelerating

By late 2025, what first appeared as a rebound in the memory sector was nefariously evolving. The signals were unambiguous for those paying attention. According to TrendForce, Samsung and SK Hynix, which together account for roughly 70% of the global DRAM market, signaled to investors they did not plan to pursue aggressive capacity expansion.  

With suppliers prioritizing profitability over volume, it quickly became clear the conditions which created the memory crunch would not be easily reversed. Indeed, analysts projected that the memory price rally is poised to extend past 2028.  

Pricing data from Q4 2025 reinforced that outlook as DDR5 chip prices rose from $6.84 in September 2025 to $27.20 in December. DDR4 spot prices also soared, trading above DDR5 in some configurations to invert the traditional value hierarchy and reflect the growing scarcity of legacy memory.  

NAND flash told a similar story. SanDisk and Samsung both pushed back their NAND delivery schedules, triggering 50-100% weekly price shocks for downstream buyers who lacked the scale to access priority allocation.  

In mid-December, the magnitude of this pressure became clear. Kingston's datacenter SSD business manager warned that NAND prices had surged 246% since the start of 2025. Nearly 70% of that increase occurred in just the prior 60 days. Since NAND accounts for approximately 90% of an SSD's cost structure, Kingston indicated it had no room to absorb further increases and would be forced to pass them on. That stance has since been adopted by numerous other manufacturers as prices continue to rise.  

Micron’s December earnings call added fuel to the fire. The company disclosed that it could fulfill only 55-60% of core customer demand, and identified three structural drivers behind the crunch:

• Exponential acceleration of AI data center buildouts
• HBM’s 3-to-1 consumption ratio against DDR5 capacity  
• Cleanroom construction lead times now stretching years rather than months

Q1 2026: Legacy memory explodes

Momentum intensified in the first quarter of the new year. Counterpoint Research confirmed that memory prices surged up to 80-90% quarter-over-quarter from Q4 2025 into Q1 2026 across most segments.  

With DDR4 supply plummeting, suppliers held firm to EOL strategies. In previous cycles, elevated pricing may have prompted production extensions. However, outside of a corner case with Samsung extending DDR4 EOL to meet its contractual obligations to a single large buyer, most manufacturers haven’t budged. Likewise, capacity expansion remained constrained by both supplier strategy and external factors despite mounting pressure for more inventory in the supply chain.  

The inversion logic that has made DDR4 more expensive than DDR5 persisted. Buyers dependent on legacy platforms for industrial systems, embedded designs, and automotive platforms, had nowhere to pivot. The cost of reliance on DDR4 climbed sharply even as availability continued contracting.

February-March 2026: The shock spreads downstream

By late February and into March, the pricing pressure that had been compressing margins across the supply chain reached OEMs and end consumers. TrendForce noted that PC makers, including Lenovo and Acer, announced pricing adjustments. HP was even more direct, with its CFO indicating that memory and storage had climbed from 15–18% of its PC BOM to approximately 35% in 2026.

In the mobile segment, a similar story unfolded. Samsung raised prices on its Galaxy S26 lineup at launch, with the base model costing nearly 5% more in the U.S. and the Plus model up 10%. Major Chinese OEMs including OPPO, Vivo, Xiaomi, and Honor were reported to be coordinating price adjustments for March, with analysts describing it as the most significant collective smartphone pricing action in nearly five years. As a result, IDC projected global smartphone sales will fall by 13% in 2026 as cost pressures are passed on to end users.  

The implications for silicon-level system design were underscored by MediaTek CEO Rick Tsai, speaking at ISSCC in February. Tsai flagged memory as one of the defining bottlenecks in XPU development, noting that it now accounts for roughly 50% of the total BOM.

The combined effect: What the percentages really mean

In isolation, each quarterly price movement is concerning. Taken together, they describe a more serious escalation and compounding damage that leaves buyers with little recourse.  

The headline figures are striking. NAND prices climbed 246% from the start of 2025 through December, according to Kingston. That figure preceded delivery disruptions that triggered an additional 50-100% in weekly spikes for buyers who lost access to contracted supply.  

DDR4, defying the logic that legacy memory should soften as it approaches end-of-life, posted quarterly price increases of up to 50% during the legacy rally. Spot prices across both DDR4 and DDR5 remain persistently elevated, with quote validity windows shrinking and allocation tightening simultaneously.

What matters most for procurement leaders is not any single data point but the cumulative exposure. An organization that absorbed a 30% DRAM increase in Q3, another 40–50% in Q4, and now an additional 80–90% quarter-over-quarter surge in Q1 2026 is looking at a cost structure that has been fundamentally repriced in the span of a few planning cycles. Each delay in locking supply or qualifying alternatives compounds that exposure.

Why this is structural, not cyclical

The traditional memory market runs on boom-bust cycles. Oversupply drives prices down, producers cut capacity, demand recovers, prices rise, and the cycle resets. The last six months have seen that cycle materially disrupted. Several factors are at play:  

• AI demand has permanently raised baseline memory consumption. Hyperscaler capex among the top eight cloud service providers is projected to exceed $600 billion in 2026, a 40% year-over-year increase. Much of that spend is directed at high-end GPUs and accelerator chips. ‍
• HBM is crowding out commodity DRAM capacity. Micron noted a 3-to-1 conversion ratio between HBM and DDR5 wafer capacity, meaning every HBM ramp directly compresses general-purpose memory supply. ‍
• Suppliers are actively managing scarcity, not racing to solve it. Micron, SK Hynix, and Samsung are preventing panic buying by locking in customers with allocation-only frameworks that favor hyperscalers and large OEMs. Smaller buyers are critically disadvantaged.  ‍
• New fab capacity won’t arrive in time to matter. Micron's new Idaho fab isn't expected to reach operational status until 2027, and TrendForce confirms that Samsung and SK Hynix can only modestly expand existing lines in the interim. ‍
• Manufacturers are intent on preserving record profit margins. By coordinating a disciplined posture, key suppliers can keep prices high and neuter the release valve the industry has historically relied on.  ‍
• Geopolitical tensions have fragmented regional pricing. Tariff threats, U.S.-China trade friction, and military conflict in the Middle East have created uncertainty and divergent pricing dynamics across markets, complicating procurement strategies for organizations that source across multiple regions.

From price tracking to price strategy

Understanding the price history is a starting point. Strategic action is what separates organizations able to maintain production continuity from those that can’t.  

The cumulative increases across DDR4, DDR5, and NAND over the past several quarters represent one of the most aggressive multi-quarter memory inflation cycles in recent history.

Buyers who deferred action at each stage are now facing the compounded cost of that delay. Those entering long-term agreements today are doing so at elevated prices, but further waiting will only worsen the outcome.  

Sourceability helps organizations track memory price trends and lifecycle shifts in real time to identify at-risk components across BOMs before constraints tighten further. Our global team of experts and franchise partners also gives customers access to authentic supply beyond allocation-only channels and helps you plan for redesigns before unavailability truly hits.