In the first week of August, the global storage chip market presented a thought-provoking 'temperature difference' signal: while DDR4 chip prices hit a 10-year high and NAND flash prices surged over 200% in six months, the upward momentum of DRAM spot prices significantly slowed, leaving buyers and sellers in a stalemate in their price negotiations. The structural divergence between spot and contract markets, and between AI applications and traditional consumer electronics, is becoming the most noteworthy new variable in the semiconductor market of summer 2026.
According to TrendForce's latest storage spot price trend report, as of the week ending August 4, the overall DRAM spot market showed a sideways trend. Although 4Gb DDR4 and 2Gb DDR3 chip prices continued to rise gradually, the upward momentum weakened significantly compared to late July, with buyers and sellers yet to reach a price consensus, resulting in very limited trading volume. Taking the mainstream DDR4 1Gx8 3200MT/s specification as an example, its spot average price only increased by 0.17% from the previous week, rising from $42.04 to $42.11. For NAND flash, although the spot price of 512Gb TLC Wafer increased by 4.55% in a single week to $20.125, the sustainability of this price rebound remains questionable due to lack of strong buying support.
Market Tug-of-War Behind the 'Lukewarm' Spot Market
The 'lukewarm' spot market forms a stark contrast to the sharp price increases in the first half of the year. In January, the spot average price of mainstream DDR4 8Gb memory chips was only about $11.5; according to the latest statistics from market research institutions, the average price of this specification had risen to $24 (approximately RMB 163) by July, a 14.3% increase from $21 in June. This not only set a new record since the initiation of this price tracking in June 2016 but also represented a cumulative year-to-date increase of 109%. Looking at a longer cycle, current DDR4 prices have increased by more than 8 times compared to the initial benchmark price of $2.9 in 2016.
The NAND flash market has also experienced an astonishing rally. For 128Gb MLC NAND chips targeting consumer terminals like memory cards and USB drives, the contract average price was $9.46 at the beginning of the year, and had climbed to $30.05 by July, a six-month increase of 218%. Persistently high prices are being passed on to end consumers: according to channel information, the retail price of mainstream 1TB SSDs has surged from around 410 yuan to near 950 yuan, while 16GB DDR5 memory kits have jumped from about 450 yuan to 1800 yuan, a 300% increase. "Prices changing daily" has become the norm in the Huaqiangbei channel.
Notably, the slowdown in spot price growth does not mean this price increase cycle has peaked. Industry analysis firms generally predict that in Q3 2026, traditional DRAM contract prices will rise by 13% to 18% quarter-over-quarter, while NAND flash contract prices are expected to increase by 10% to 15%. Although significantly narrower than the remarkable 60% quarter-over-quarter increase in DRAM contract prices in Q2, under the background of continuously rising demand for AI servers and high-bandwidth memory (HBM), traditional DRAM capacity is being increasingly squeezed, and the supply-demand imbalance is unlikely to see substantial relief in the short term.
AI Computing Power Siphon Effect: A 'Century-Long' Battle for Capacity
Understanding the current divergence in storage market trends cannot overlook a key keyword—HBM. As the core computing foundation for AI servers, HBM is consuming storage capacity at an astonishing rate. According to TrendForce's analysis, the wafer consumption of HBM is about 4 to 5 times that of DDR5, with HBM shipments expected to grow by 60% in 2026 and another 60% in 2027. A person from the Semiconductor Industry Association (SEMI) pointed out that the HBM market size is expected to grow by 58% in 2026 to $54.6 billion, accounting for about one-tenth of the DRAM market's output value.
Driven by high profit margins, the three major original manufacturers—Samsung, SK Hynix, and Micron—have allocated about 70% of their new capacity to HBM and enterprise storage, but the HBM capacity gap still stands at 50% to 60%. As of Q1 2026, the HBM capacity of the three major manufacturers has been completely sold out, with orders from some core clients even locked in until 2028. NVIDIA CEO Jensen Huang has explicitly stated that the global HBM supply shortage "is not a short-term market fluctuation but will be a structural industry dilemma that will last for several years." Samsung Electronics has signed long-term supply agreements with five major data centers and warned that the supply shortage will continue until 2028.
This structural imbalance is directly reflected in industry reports. UBS Group's "Monthly Report on Storage Chips" shows that global storage chip sales reached $74.6 billion in July 2026, setting a new historical monthly record for the industry, a surge of 31.7% month-on-month; among which, core category DRAM sales were about $48 billion, a 27.7% increase month-on-month. UBS expects DRAM contract prices to rise by 32% quarter-over-quarter in Q3 2026 and continue to increase by 18% in Q4, with DRAM supply expected to remain in a structural shortage state until at least Q2 2028. Samsung Electronics' Q2 earnings report disclosed at the end of July also showed that the company's operating profit increased by 1814% year-on-year, with the semiconductor division being the main contributor, and it clearly stated that demand growth for server DRAM, enterprise SSDs, and HBM is expected to accelerate further.
On one side is the nearly "thirsty" demand for high-bandwidth memory from AI servers, while on the other side, ordinary consumers are visibly seeing prices for phones, graphics cards, and laptops rise—this reallocation of limited storage capacity is the core narrative of the current semiconductor market. According to TrendForce data, the cost of 12GB phone memory has risen from about 200 yuan to 600 yuan, the unit price of 1TB flash storage has nearly tripled, and the topic of "models below 5,000 yuan basically disappearing" in the laptop market continues to ferment. HBM profit margins are 3 to 5 times that of consumer-grade storage products, with leading manufacturers continuously shifting capacity from consumer areas like phones and PCs to AI storage, forming a reinforcing cycle where "the hotter AI gets, the more expensive consumer electronics become."
How to Interpret the Spot Market Cooling: Cyclical Signal or Emotional Noise?
For investors, the recent signal of slowing growth in the spot market needs to be viewed dialectically. Historically, spot prices often change before contract prices, making them the most sensitive window for observing marginal changes in storage supply and demand. The narrowing of this spot price increase reflects, on one hand, the rising wait-and-see sentiment of channel operators at high price levels and their cautious willingness to stock up; on the other hand, it also indicates that after several consecutive quarters of sharp increases, some end-demand has developed a short-term "fear of high prices" mentality, with short-term trading heat cooling down. The price tug-of-war between buyers and sellers in the spot market is essentially the market finding a new consensus anchor for the next stage of pricing.
However, this does not mean the arrival of a cyclical turning point. What truly determines the direction of storage prosperity is the realization rhythm of AI computing capital expenditures and the expansion progress of the supply side. Currently, the capital expenditures of the world's nine major cloud service providers are expected to grow by 79% in 2026, Meta has locked in nearly $700 billion in medium to long-term computing power and cloud infrastructure spending, and Anthropic plans to build a 1.6-gigawatt computing power campus—the demand-side certainty remains strong. On the supply side, the expansion of the three major manufacturers and domestic CXI Storage and Yangtze Memory is mostly concentrated in HBM and advanced nodes, with relatively limited new supply for traditional consumer-grade DRAM and NAND, and the industry's supply-demand balance is expected to continue. Counterpoint Research data shows that CXI Storage's revenue surged by 716% year-on-year in Q2 2026, firmly ranking fourth with 7% of the global market share, becoming the fastest-growing DRAM manufacturer globally, with the voice of domestic storage in the global supply structure steadily increasing.
TrendForce significantly raised its global memory output value forecast this May: global memory output value is expected to increase from the previous $551.6 billion to $889.3 billion in 2026, and is projected to exceed $1.28 trillion in 2027, with an annual growth rate of about 44%; among which, DRAM output value is expected to reach $618.7 billion in 2026, a year-on-year increase of as high as 303%. The industry judgment implied by this data is that the simultaneous increase in volume and price of storage chips is not a short-term pulse but the beginning of a new super cycle driven by AI. Currently, server-related applications account for 60% to 65% of the DRAM market, and this proportion is expected to rise above 65% in 2027 and approach 70% in 2028, with the binding between storage chips and AI computing power becoming increasingly tight.
Conclusion
Returning to the semiconductor market in August: the coexistence of spot "cooling" and contract "high fever," and the "uneven heating" between AI applications and traditional consumer electronics, precisely indicates that this storage prosperity cycle is transitioning from a general increase phase to a structural differentiation phase. For investors, instead of getting caught up in the weekly price fluctuations, it's better to grasp the following three main lines:
- Expansion Bonus Main Line: Focus on the prosperity spillover in equipment, materials, and packaging segments brought by HBM and advanced DRAM expansion. SEMI predicts that global semiconductor manufacturing equipment sales will reach a historical high of $165.9 billion in 2026, a year-on-year increase of 23.2%, with storage expansion being one of the core drivers.
- Domestic Replacement Main Line: Domestic manufacturers like CXI Storage and Yangtze Memory continue to release capacity and steadily improve yield rates, with supporting systems in design, manufacturing, equipment, and materials segments taking shape, and the logic of dual increase in pricing power and market share gradually being realized.
- Expectation Difference Main Line: Closely monitor signals of convergence between contract and spot price deviations. When spot prices stabilize while contract prices are still rising, it is often a window for sector expectation realignment; conversely, be alert to risks of high-level stagnation.
The cycle continues, structure is king. From the triple factors of AI-driven, supply rigidity, and long-term order lock-in, the medium to long-term logic of upward storage prosperity remains clear; however, the sustainability of high price levels and the realization rhythm of downstream demand will continue to be variables that the industry needs to observe. This "century-long battle" for storage chips may be even more exciting in the second half than in the first.
