The Price Monitoring Center of China's National Development and Reform Commission (NDRC) recently issued a report stating that since September 2025, the global memory market gap has continued to widen due to both explosive demand growth and a precipitous shortage of production capacity, leading to a continuous rise in memory chip prices. The price increase has widened significantly in the past month or so.
Price data shows that as of January this year, the prices of the two main memory chip products, DRAM and NAND flash memory, have both reached their highest levels since 2016. Specifically, the average contract price for mainstream DRAM (DDR4 8Gb) reached $11.5, an 83% increase compared to September 2025; the average contract price for NAND flash memory (128Gb) reached $9.5, nearly 1.5 times higher than in September 2025.
Analysts believe this round of price increases is driven by three main factors: First, the surge in AI computing power demand has led to a significant increase in demand for high-end storage, with global AI server shipments continuing to climb, and the memory requirement of a single AI server reaching eight times that of a traditional server; second, leading manufacturers such as Samsung, SK Hynix, and Micron have shifted over 80% of their advanced production capacity to high-margin, high-bandwidth memory, resulting in a severe shortage of consumer-grade storage chips; and third, rising prices of raw materials such as silicon wafers and metals, coupled with panic buying by downstream users, have further pushed up prices.
Currently, the price increase effect is rapidly spreading to consumer electronics terminals. Major computer manufacturers such as Lenovo, Dell, and HP have issued price adjustment notices, with increases generally ranging from 500 to 1500 yuan; the prices of new phones from domestic brands such as Xiaomi and Vivo with the same storage version have increased by 300 to 500 yuan compared to the previous generation. Industry insiders predict that as the upward cycle of storage chip prices continues, terminal electronic products may usher in a new round of price adjustments.
