In the midst of a tight memory chip supply, Samsung’s reportedly planning a price hike for its DRAM processors by 20% in the third quarter of this year. It looks like a new challenge in the market that may affect the AI demand while favoring the company’s growth.
As noted by @SemiconductorsX, Samsung’s pushing for a 20% price hike of its DRAM chips in Q3 2026. The move triggers a new challenge amid rising memory prices.
Samsung’s DRAM ASP already rose by 90% in the first quarter of this year, and it didn’t stop there. The second quarter showed a cost increment of nearly 50 to 60%.
Now the South Korean tech giant is planning another 20% price increase for its DRAM processors in the third quarter. It has started negotiating with its clients over the DRAM price increase.
The new move will directly impact future phones featuring DRAM chips. The AI demand in the market already has a tight supply across DRAM, HBM, and LPDDR servers.
Now Samsung plans to further raise the price of its DRAM processors. Future phones using Samsung memory chips can witness major price tags due to component cost pressure. Thus, the firm’s latest plan can also put pressure on the smartphone market.
Apart from Samsung, SK Hynix could also make a similar price plan for its memory chips. Although the increment percentage could be lower than that of Samsung’s.
A semiconductor industry official said:
“Samsung Electronics is very aggressive in price negotiations in the third quarter of this year. LPDDR, which is a bottleneck in both servers and mobile, will raise its price by more than 20%. However, it is unclear whether customers will accept all of this.”
(Image Credits: Samsung)
