Provide shortages and large value will increase for RAM and storage have been a major drag for fans and PC builders in current months. And whereas we haven’t but seen massive, widespread value will increase for memory-dependent merchandise like pre-built laptop computer PCs, smartphones, and graphics playing cards, most firms expect that to change this year if shortages proceed.
Within the meantime, reminiscence producers are driving excessive demand and excessive costs to report earnings.
In income steering released this week, Samsung Electronics predicts it’s going to make between 19.9 and 20.1 trillion Korean received in working revenue (roughly $13.8 billion USD) in This fall 2025, in comparison with simply 6.49 trillion received in This fall of 2024.
Samsung is far more than only a reminiscence enterprise, after all, however its fortunes usually rise and fall together with its reminiscence division; Samsung’s earnings have been dropping dramatically in 2023 partly due to an oversupply of reminiscence that made its reminiscence division lose billions of {dollars}.
Much less-diversified firms that primarily make reminiscence are additionally raking in cash recently. SK Hynix posted its “highest-ever quarterly efficiency” in Q3 of 2025 with 11.38 trillion Korean received (about $7.8 billion) in working revenue, up from 7.03 trillion in Q3 of 2024, and an working margin that elevated from 40 p.c to 47 p.c. SK Hynix credit “increasing investments in AI infrastructure” and “surging demand for AI servers” for its efficiency.
Micron—which lately determined to exit the consumer RAM and storage markets however remains to be promoting its merchandise to different companies—additionally reported a big boost to internet revenue 12 months over 12 months, from $1.87 billion in Q1 2025 to $5.24 billion in Q1 2026. This has generated the corporate’s “highest ever free money circulation.”
“Complete firm income, DRAM and NAND income, in addition to HBM and knowledge middle income and income in every of our enterprise items, additionally reached new information [in fiscal Q1],” wrote Micron CEO Sanjay Mehrotra.
Why is RAM so costly proper now?
Studying these upbeat earnings stories and forecasts will likely be chilly consolation to individuals making an attempt to construct or improve a PC, who’ve seen the worth of a 32GB package of DDR5-6000 improve from $80 in August 2025 to $340 as we speak. And if the present AI increase continues, it’s not prone to get higher within the close to time period.
