The memory market has been rising for almost a year, and spot prices have increased 5-10 times compared with last year. However, the market has begun to differentiate recently, and DDR4, which is one generation behind, has been unable to rise. DDR4 memory was the first to increase in price last year, starting in the first half of the year. The reason was that Samsung and other giants stopped producing DDR4 memory, which led to a reduction in supply and prices began to rise. At one time, there was a historic regression that was more expensive than DDR5.
DDR4 memory has also been rising in the past six months, but it is more due to market speculation. The price has begun to adjust not long ago. The so-called plummeting price of memory that everyone saw last month is actually that DDR4 memory cannot continue to be speculated.
According to data from Mirae Asset Securities, DDR4 memory prices plummeted 16% in the past April. The ultra-high premium has been difficult to sustain. Many manufacturers and dealers cannot withstand the hype and have to cut prices and reduce inventory.
However, not only did the price of mainstream memory such as DDR5 not drop in April, also increased by 2.8%. After all, this kind of memory is still the mainstream of current PCs, mobile phones and AI data centers.
In particular, recent Korean media reports indicate that the memory capacity required for AI CPUs has skyrocketed from the previous 96-256GB to 300-400GB. The demand for DDR5 memory will only increase significantly, and the supply shortage problem will be extended by another year from 2026 to 2027.
Korean media reports come and go, and the core idea conveyed is nothing more than that memory prices will continue to rise. Samsung, SK Hynix and Micron, the three major memory chip suppliers, will only be happier when they hear such news.
