Overview
- Samsung, which was reported negotiating on Friday, July 3, is seeking roughly a 20 percent quarter-over-quarter hike for commodity DRAM and LPDDR in Q3 2026.
- Investment bank UBS now projects DDR contract prices will rise about 32 percent in Q3 and 18 percent in Q4 and has raised industry revenue forecasts to roughly $992 billion for 2026 and $1.76 trillion for 2027.
- The Q3 move follows earlier, steep sequential increases from Samsung of about 90 percent in Q1 2026 and 50–60 percent in Q2 2026 that reshaped market pricing this year.
- LPDDR5X contract prices have roughly tripled since Q1 2025 and are near $145 for a 12GB unit as manufacturers shift wafer output toward high-bandwidth memory for AI workloads while long-term deals lock in supply.
- Higher memory prices are raising costs for cloud providers, data centers and consumer device makers now and will likely persist until new fabs come online, with most analysts expecting meaningful relief around 2028.