Unprecedented Price Reversal Spotted Amid Severe Bottlenecks: Memory Market Facing Record-Breaking Cycle

As the AI investment boom extends beyond High Bandwidth Memory (HBM) to general-purpose DRAM and NAND flash, analysis shows that the global memory market has entered an unprecedented boom.

Market research firm SigmaIntelligence projected that global semiconductor revenue this year will reach approximately $1.587 trillion, about 2,241 trillion won, marking a 107% increase compared to last year.

In particular, memory revenue is forecasted to skyrocket by 290% to about $960 billion, accounting for roughly 60% of the entire semiconductor market.

DRAM revenue is expected to surge by more than 300%, NAND flash by nearly 250%, and the HBM market alone is projected to exceed $100 billion.

The core drivers of this super-boom in memory are the AI-driven surge in demand and supply shortages.

As Samsung Electronics, SK Hynix, and Micron increase production of HBM used in AI accelerators, the supply of wafers available for general-purpose DRAM production has decreased by double digits.

In addition, demand for DRAM for AI servers has spiked, worsening supply shortages even for general-purpose products.

SigmaIntelligence forecasts that the average selling price (ASP) of general-purpose DRAM such as DDR in the third quarter of this year will reach 4 to 5 times the level of the same period last year.

A price reversal phenomenon has also emerged in some products; according to Counterpoint Research, the price per gigabit of certain general-purpose DRAM has surpassed that of HBM, which is a higher-value product requiring more complex manufacturing processes.

The AI-driven boom is spreading to NAND flash as well.

With a rapid spike in demand for enterprise SSDs to store data in large-scale AI servers, servers are emerging as the memory market's largest source of demand.

This presents a double blessing for Samsung Electronics and SK Hynix.

Not only can they expand sales of highly profitable HBM, but they can also expect improved profitability from general-purpose DRAM and NAND, whose prices have risen due to supply shortages.

Although Chinese memory companies like CXMT are rapidly catching up in the general-purpose DRAM market, prevailing forecasts suggest that increased production by Chinese firms will be unable to resolve the global memory supply shortage in the short term.

The market also suggests that this boom is likely to last longer than previous memory cycles.

Omdia expects supply bottlenecks in HBM and advanced packaging to persist until at least 2027, while Goldman Sachs forecasts that supply shortages will continue until 2030 as the growth in AI computing demand outpaces the speed of memory supply expansion.

(Reported by Kim Minjeong | Video edited by Lee Eui-sun | Design by Lee Jung-joo | Produced by SBS Digital News)
※ Please note: This article was translated by AI and may contain errors.