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This year, the first wave of price increases in the storage market began inearly April, when SanDisk sent a price increase notice to customers, marking the first shot in this year’s storage chip price increase.
As we reachedSeptember, the second wave of price increase signals in the storage market was sounded again.
01Storage Chips, Price Increase Imminent
Recently, the storage chip market has become lively again, and the second wave of price increases has started!
Leading the charge is SanDisk, which announced in early September a price increase of over 10% for all products, and stated that “further adjustments may follow.” Despite a 12% quarter-on-quarter revenue growth last quarter, the production capacity of their joint venture with Kioxia has not fully recovered, and coupled with weak competition in high-end markets like AI servers, the price increase may also be a reluctant move.
Following closely, Micron also hinted that all storage products would increase by 20% to 30%, and they have suspended pricing for a week, even canceling prices for contractual customers temporarily. Industry insiders reported that Micron’s executives discovered that customer demand forecasts far exceeded supply, prompting an urgent halt to pricing and a preparation for re-pricing. Phison also stated that they would “follow up with a suspension of pricing,” with the specific increase depending on market movements.
The driving force behind this wave of price increases is primarily the large-scale procurement by cloud service providers (CSPs) boosting demand. Upon closer inspection, different categories of storage products are experiencing varying market conditions:
For traditional yet still important memory types like DDR4 and LPDDR4X, prices have been rising since the second quarter. This is due to major manufacturers like Samsung and SK Hynix gradually phasing out older processes, leading to supply tightness, especially as server manufacturers aggressively procure, squeezing the supply for the PC and consumer electronics industries. Fields like televisions, industrial control, and networking equipment are facing severe shortages, forcing many manufacturers to switch to the more expensive DDR5.
On the other hand, DDR5 and HBM are primarily driven by demand from AI servers and data centers. AI training and inference require high memory bandwidth and capacity, with HBM demand expected to grow by 65% this year, and DDR5 prices have been steadily rising since Q2, with enterprise-level products seeing increases of up to 10%.
Next, enterprise SSDs may become the market focus.02Domestic Storage Industry Chain, New Opportunities
This wave of price increases and shortages has also brought a rare development window for the domestic storage industry chain.
For instance, in the niche storage (DDR4/LPDDR4, etc.) sector, GigaDevice has stated that its revenue in the second half of the year is expected to significantly increase compared to the first half, with prices continuing to rise, and the tight situation may last until the end of the year. Their future goal is to capture one-third of the domestic market.
Lanqi Technology, which produces memory interface chips, is also gaining momentum with the popularization of DDR5. These chips act as the “nerve center” of memory, affecting overall server performance, and with the rising demand for DDR5, their shipments have already surpassed those of DDR4.
In terms of storage modules, several domestic manufacturers are making progress:
Bawei Storage focuses on industrial-grade storage and is one of the few companies in China capable of achieving a full-chain layout from “chip – packaging – module,” and has obtained supplier qualifications from several AI server and internet giants.
Jiangbolong has launched multiple enterprise-level SSDs, covering from SATA to PCIe, and has completed compatibility adaptations with domestic CPU platforms.
Companies like Demingli and Wanrun Technology are also advancing their self-developed controllers or promoting the research and development of the next generation of SSDs.
Additionally, Shannon Semiconductor, as an important distributor of server storage chips, represents brands like Samsung and SK Hynix, and is a key supply channel behind AI server manufacturers.
Overall, against the backdrop of international manufacturers raising prices and limited production capacity, domestic companies are seizing a rare “domestic substitution” opportunity period, leveraging localized services, cost advantages, and technological breakthroughs. This wave of market activity in storage is not just about prices; it may also reshape the industry landscape.