TAIPEI, January 19, 2026, 23:44 GMT+8
- Memory price forecasts for early 2026 point to another round of cost pressure for phones and PCs
- Nothing CEO Carl Pei says brands may have to lift prices by 30% or cut specs
- Micron is moving to add DRAM capacity in Taiwan as suppliers prioritise AI-related demand
Legacy memory prices are gearing up for another jolt, with DDR4 contract prices expected to rise by as much as 50% in the first quarter as supply tightens and enterprise buyers stock up, TrendForce News reported on Monday. It said some major makers have paused price quotes ahead of negotiations expected to run into late January and February, while TrendForce forecast conventional DRAM contract prices to jump 55% to 60% quarter-on-quarter and NAND flash contract prices to rise 33% to 38%. (TrendForce)
That matters now because DRAM is the working memory used as RAM in phones and PCs, and NAND flash is the storage that holds apps and photos — and both are being pulled into data centre buildouts for generative AI. “Cost increases [are] being passed through to customers,” said Ben Yeh, a principal analyst at Omdia, as companies such as Nvidia and Google buy more memory for AI infrastructure. (Information Age)
Nothing CEO Carl Pei, whose company sells Android smartphones, said last week that brands face a simple choice: “raise prices, by 30% or more” or downgrade device specifications as memory costs rise. Pei wrote that some memory costs have already increased by up to three times, and warned: “The era of cheap silicon is over.” (LinkedIn)
India’s Times of India, which highlighted Pei’s comments, said he also signalled price increases across Nothing’s smartphone portfolio as it upgrades some products launching in the first quarter to UFS 3.1, a faster phone storage standard. (The Times of India)
On the supply side, memory makers are leaning into higher-margin products aimed at cloud operators and AI chips, leaving older parts in shorter supply. TrendForce said Samsung is sticking to its end-of-life plan for DDR4, a move it said could push per-gigabit prices to record highs in 2026 as supply drops. (TrendForce)
U.S. memory maker Micron is also adding capacity, saying it has signed a letter of intent to buy Powerchip Semiconductor Manufacturing’s P5 fabrication site in Tongluo, Taiwan, for $1.8 billion in cash. Micron said it expects the deal to help boost its output of DRAM wafers beginning in the second half of 2027 and add about 300,000 square feet of cleanroom space; Powerchip said the companies would establish a long-term foundry relationship for advanced-packaging work. (Reuters)
TrendForce said Micron’s move could create room for an upward revision in global DRAM supply in 2027, estimating the first phase of the Tongluo fab’s contribution in the second half of 2027 at more than 10% of Micron’s global capacity as of the fourth quarter of 2026. TrendForce data put Micron’s share of global DRAM revenue at 25.7% in the third quarter of 2025. (TrendForce)
Still, the memory business swings between shortages and gluts, and the timing is messy. If consumers delay upgrades, or if phone makers cut memory and storage to protect price points, demand could soften even as suppliers race to expand.
For now, the squeeze is landing where margins are thin and upgrades are marketed in gigabytes. Buyers may see higher sticker prices on new models, smaller memory steps year-on-year, or both.
