Samsung Electronics has issued a stark warning about memory chip shortages that will drive price increases across the electronics industry in 2026, signaling that consumers and enterprises alike face unavoidable cost pressures regardless of vendor choice.
AI Data Centers Drain Memory Supply
The root cause of the shortage stems from manufacturers reallocating production capacity toward high-bandwidth memory (HBM) for artificial intelligence data centers. HBM production for AI accelerators consumes approximately three times the wafer capacity of standard DRAM per gigabyte, forcing Samsung, SK Hynix, and Micron to shift manufacturing priorities away from traditional consumer and enterprise memory products.
“AI workloads are built around memory. AI has changed the nature of demand itself,” explained Sanchit Vir Gosia, CEO of Greyhound Research. “Training and inference systems require large, persistent memory footprints, extreme bandwidth, and tight proximity to compute.”
Dramatic Price Increases Already Underway
The impact on pricing has been swift and severe. Samsung raised prices for 32GB DDR5 modules to $239 from $149 in September, a 60% increase. Contract pricing for DDR5 has surged even more dramatically, reaching $19.50 per unit compared to around $7 earlier in 2025.
DRAM prices have already risen approximately 50% year to date, and TrendForce predicts DRAM prices will increase up to 60% by the end of Q1 2026. Gartner forecast DRAM prices to increase by 47% in 2026 due to significant undersupply in both traditional and legacy DRAM markets.
Consumer Electronics Will Feel the Pinch
Samsung’s executives have been transparent about the implications for consumer products. Wonjin Lee, Samsung’s global marketing leader, stated “Prices are going up even as we speak. Obviously, we don’t want to convey that burden to the consumers, but we’re going to be at a point where we have to actually consider repricing our products.”
Samsung co-CEO T M Roh told Reuters the memory supply crisis affects consumer electronics beyond RAM or system storage, indicating that smartphones, televisions, and home appliances will all face potential price increases.
The timing creates particular pressure for Samsung’s flagship Galaxy S26 launch, as Apple overtook Samsung to become the largest smartphone maker in the world with strong iPhone 17 sales. Despite record profitability—Samsung’s DRAM division brought in $25.9 billion in revenue for Q4 2025 alone—the company faces a delicate balance between recovering costs and maintaining market competitiveness.
Long-Term Solutions Remain Years Away
Relief is unlikely to come quickly. Samsung has announced plans to build a new memory production line at its Pyeongtaek, South Korea plant, but mass production will not begin until 2028. In the meantime, SK Hynix reported that its HBM, DRAM, and NAND capacity is “essentially sold out” for 2026, while. Micron recently exited the consumer memory market entirely to focus on enterprise and AI customers.
For consumers planning technology purchases in 2026, Samsung’s warning represents an urgent signal that cost increases are inevitable across the board.
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