Samsung, SK Hynix, Micron rare cooperation, strictly find hoarding speculation and release production signals to cool down the overheated market

This week, Samsung, SK Hynix and Micron, which occupy more than 90% of the global DRAM market, reached a rare market consensus to form an “anti-hoarding alliance” and jointly launched a downstream omni-channel real demand mapping survey to investigate hoarding and price speculation, false quotationting and other behaviors, and at the same time synchronized the release of a small increase in production signals in the second half of 2026. Increase production signals, the core of this action is to cool down the current overheated memory market, to avoid the end demand is destroyed becuse too high prices, while regaining control of the industry chain pricing dominance, to avoid the subsequent price collapse of the industry risk.

Specific measures of the joint rigorous investigation: the three major original manufacturers for downstream agents, distributors, domestic Class A customers and OEM processing plants, the introduction of multiple stringent review mechanism, the core requirements of customers to fully disclose the end-customer information, the true amount of the order and the use of the product purpose, to ensure the authenticity of the demand; a single over the norm of large orders to start a special verification, part of the distributor to Micron to submit the DDR5 server memory orders, was asked to supplement the terminal data center memory orders. Samsung also requires channel vendors to update inventory turnover data on a monthly basis, while SK Hynix strictly controls over-booking behavior and suspends supply to customers who cannot produce evidence of terminal delivery.

The core background of the strict investigation: the current memory price surge has been seriously detached from the real demand, showing the “capital carnival” feature, the channel end of the hoarding speculation exacerbated the imbalance between supply and demand in the market. some channel traders through the split order, false order and other ways to take excess goods, and then cover the goods on sale, creating the illusion of shortage, resulting in the spot price and the original contract price of the factory is seriously decoupled, the first-line OEMs to get the contract price of the DRAM per GB of only 10-20 U.S. dollars, far below the spot market level. This is far below the spot market level. At the same time, the revenue growth rate of the three major OEMs is seriously mismatched with the price increase of 6-8 times in the terminal market, with most of the profits being earned by the channel players and the pricing power of the OEMs being diluted.

Release the specific content of the signal to increase production: the three original manufacturers synchronized to the market to release the signal of the second half of 2026 small increase in production, samsung in the fourth quarter of 2025 results conference, DRAM bit shipment growth is expected to be limited to the low single-digit range, flash memory to achieve the mid-single-digit growth, the increase in production rate is relatively conservative, did not appear to be a large-scale production expansion plan. This increase in production is not aimed at the current market gap, but to ease the market's anxiety about supply shortages, while combating speculative hoarding with strict investigation measures.

The core reason for the joint action ：

To avoid industry risks: 2023 memory prices avalanche of falling hard lessons for the three major manufacturers realize that short-term profiteering is far less important than long-term stable revenue, at that time Samsung's semiconductor business loss of $ 11.2 billion, SK Hynix net loss of $ 6.26 billion, Micron loss of $ 5.83 billion. Currently part of the agent debt or credit stockpiling, once the panic selling, very easy to trigger an avalanche of prices, the original factory this time just to avoid the risk in advance.

Reverse the imbalance between supply and demand: the current memory market “shortage” is not the real supply and demand gap, but the economics of the “bullwhip effect” embodiment of the tiny fluctuations in end-consumer demand, through the dealers, agents layer by layer to increase the purchase, passed to the original factory was amplified by tens of times, creating false demand The small fluctuations in end-consumer demand are magnified by tens of times when they are passed on to the original manufacturer through increased purchasing by dealers and agents, creating a false surge in demand.

Maintenance of terminal demand: the current memory prices too high have led to serious cost pressures on downstream terminal manufacturers, global smartphone shipments in 2026 are expected to decrease by 2.1% annually, the first quarter of 2026 global notebook shipments decreased by 14.8% quarter-on-quarter, the middle and low-end cell phone manufacturers 2025 net profit fell sharply by 54.11% year-on-year, if the price continues to skyrocket, the end of the demand will be further contraction, and finally If prices continue to skyrocket, end demand will shrink further, ultimately leading to stagnant memory sales in the hands of agents, which will devastate the entire industry.

The market impact of the action: the joint action has brought about an obvious “cooling” effect, the channel side of the speculative stockpiling power has dropped significantly, some excessive stockpiling dealers began to take the initiative to clean up inventories, the price of DDR5 part of the model appeared to be a significant drop with the Wind Memory Index dropping by nearly 8% on February 2, and a number of stocks, such as the Jiang Bolong and Shen Kangjia, have fallen off about the stock market.

The essence of the action: the three original manufacturers of the joint rigorous investigation is not a “conscience to save the market”, but in order to regain control of the industry chain's pricing dominance and demand for the right to speak, through the crackdown on channel speculation, so that the spot price gradually to the return of the contract price, and at the same time to grasp the real end demand data, to enhance the subsequent production capacity planning and expansion of decision-making reasonability, and to promote the market back to rational supply and demand. Promote the market to return to rational supply and demand, and ultimately consolidate its monopoly position in the industry.