Samsung and SK Hynix Plan 30% DRAM Price Hike

Recently, the semiconductor industry has widely predicted that the memory boom driven by artificial intelligence (AI) will be stronger and longer-lasting than any previous cycle. With rising investments in AI servers, increasing replacement demand for conventional server memory, and the rapid growth of on-device AI applications, the market is expected to face a “short supply” situation that could last three to four years.

Industry sources revealed that major memory manufacturers such as Samsung Electronics and SK Hynix are planning to raise DRAM and NAND prices by up to 30% in the fourth quarter, having already proposed these adjustments to their clients. Global investment banks, including Citigroup and Morgan Stanley, recently revised their semiconductor outlooks, increasing the projected DRAM average selling price (ASP) growth for Q4 by more than 10 percentage points — with the potential to reach 25–26% — further intensifying market expectations of a price surge.

At the heart of this supercycle is surging AI memory demand. Tech giants like Google, Microsoft, Amazon, Meta, and OpenAI are investing billions of dollars in AI data centers, driving explosive demand for high-bandwidth memory (HBM) — a type of high-capacity, high-performance DRAM designed specifically for AI servers. Analysts forecast that by 2030, the HBM market size will triple to reach $100 billion.

Profit margins in this segment are also expanding rapidly. The upcoming HBM4 (sixth-generation HBM) 12-layer products, set for mass production next year, are priced around $500 per unit, more than 60% higher than the current HBM3E models at about $300. Micron’s Chief Business Officer, Sumit Sadana, noted in a recent interview that “the wafer capacity required for HBM is more than three times that of standard DRAM,” adding that “since capacity expansion takes time, the extreme supply shortage will likely intensify further next year.”