Storage Market Sees Price Surge: Tight Supply of DRAM and NAND, AI Demand Driving Industry Expansion

August 4th. The storage market continues to heat up, with multiple institutions predicting that DRAM and NAND prices will continue to rise due to supply constraints and AI computing power demand.

SK Hynix and SanDisk have released the first High-Bandwidth Flash (HBF) standard specification to drive the development of new storage technologies. At the same time, the average selling price of Korean single-layer NAND products in July rose by 35% compared to the previous month, reaching a historic high.

TrendForce predicts that due to supply shortages, the fixed transaction prices of PC DRAM in the third quarter of 2026 may increase by 15% to 20% compared to the previous quarter. There are also reports that the world's top three memory manufacturers have completed negotiations on full-year capacity allocation for 2027, with DRAM and HBM capacity almost fully sold out.

In terms of the industry chain, Samsung Electronics' wafer foundry business is expected to reach 100% capacity utilization rate within the year. Counterpoint data shows that Samsung Electronics is expanding its DRAM market share advantage, intensifying competition with Micron and SK Hynix.

On the end market side, memory supply shortages have affected the supply of consumer electronics products. There are reports that the MacBook Air is facing tight supply due to memory shortages.

Furthermore, South Korean AI chip unicorn DeepX's valuation is reportedly soaring 4-fold to 31.4 trillion Korean won, indicating that the heat in the AI chip and storage industry chain continues to rise.