According to the latest memory industry survey by TrendForce, the increasing demand for AI and data centers will continue to exacerbate the global supply-demand imbalance for memory in the first quarter of 2026. Manufacturers' bargaining power will remain strong. TrendForce has therefore comprehensively revised upwards its projected quarterly price increases for various DRAM and NAND Flash products in the first quarter. The estimated overall conventional DRAM contract price increase has been revised from the 55-60% increase announced in early January to 90-95%, while the NAND Flash contract price increase has been adjusted from 33-38% to 55-60%, with the possibility of further upward revisions.

Due to better-than-expected PC shipments in the fourth quarter of 2025, PC DRAM is still generally in short supply. Against the backdrop of a seller's market driving up contract price negotiations, PC DRAM prices are expected to increase by over 100% in the first quarter of 2026, reaching a historical high.

In the NAND Flash market, although first-quarter order volumes significantly exceeded suppliers' production capacity, manufacturers are more optimistic about the profit prospects of the DRAM market and are actively converting some production lines to produce DRAM, further compressing new NAND Flash capacity. Currently, only process upgrades can barely increase unit output, and the capacity bottleneck will be difficult to alleviate in the short term.

With the expansion of Inference AI application scenarios, market demand for high-performance storage devices is far exceeding expectations. Major North American CSPs (Cloud Service Providers) have been aggressively placing orders since the end of 2025, stimulating a surge in Enterprise SSD orders. With the supply gap continuing to widen, buyers are aggressively stockpiling to replenish inventory as soon as possible, pushing Enterprise SSD prices up by 53-58% in the first quarter of 2026, setting a new record for the highest quarterly increase.