The memory market is acting like it’s on an emotional roller coaster. A small dip in spot DRAM pricing can spark dramatic predictions about an industry collapse, sending share prices swinging and headlines into overdrive. But the companies that actually set the tone for memory pricing aren’t panicking. If anything, they’re doing the opposite: steadily pushing prices higher.
Samsung is reportedly raising DRAM pricing again for Q2 2026, with average increases around 30% compared with the prior quarter. That move follows an already massive price jump earlier in the year, when average DRAM pricing was said to have doubled in Q1 2026 compared with the previous year. In other words, instead of a crash, the market is seeing a continuing upward reset.
This latest increase isn’t limited to one niche category. The reported 30% average hike spans multiple DRAM product lines, including high-bandwidth memory (HBM) used in AI workloads, along with mainstream commodity DRAM that ends up in servers, PCs, and smartphones. To put the pace into perspective, a DRAM unit that might have cost 10,000 Korean won at the start of 2025 would be roughly 20,000 won by Q1 2026, and about 26,000 won after the Q2 2026 pricing adjustment.
And Samsung likely won’t be alone. Once a leading supplier successfully establishes higher pricing, other major memory makers often follow with their own increases. That expectation alone challenges the popular narrative that commodity DRAM pricing is headed for a steep, sustained decline.
That said, not every segment is moving in lockstep. Older DDR4 chips are facing noticeable pricing pressure right now, but that appears to be more about inventory behavior than collapsing demand. When stockpiles build up, even a modest change in market sentiment can trigger “panic selling” to clear warehouses, temporarily weighing on prices. Fixed contract pricing for some PC DDR4 parts has also shown signs of stabilizing rather than falling off a cliff, suggesting this is a correction in a specific pocket of the market, not a broad-based breakdown.
Meanwhile, smartphone memory trends remain a growing concern. LPDDR5 contract pricing has already climbed sharply since early 2025, sitting around $10 per gigabyte after a roughly threefold increase over that period. Looking further ahead, expectations are that LPDDR5 contract prices could rise again by a double-digit percentage in 2027, which would keep pressure on phone makers that rely on affordable memory pricing to protect margins.
The bigger issue is how heavily memory now weighs on the cost structure of budget devices. DRAM is said to account for about 35% of the bill of materials in an entry-level smartphone, while NAND contributes another 19%. Combined, memory and storage alone can represent roughly 54% of the total component cost of a low-end handset. If DRAM and NAND pricing keep climbing, building “cheap” phones becomes much harder without cutting other features, reducing performance, or raising retail prices.
For anyone watching the DRAM market—whether for PC upgrades, server planning, AI hardware demand, or smartphone pricing—the key takeaway is simple: despite periodic noise around spot-price dips, the broader pricing power in memory still appears tilted toward increases, not a collapse.
