TrendForce: DRAM and NAND Flash Contract Prices to Rise in Late 2026

Analysis firm TrendForce has released its forecast for the memory market in the fourth quarter of 2026. The company predicts that contract prices for general DRAM memory will rise by 10-15% quarter-over-quarter. When including High Bandwidth Memory (HBM), the overall DRAM contract price increase could reach 15-20%.

Concurrently, the overall contract price for NAND flash memory is also expected to increase by 15-20%. TrendForce attributes this to memory manufacturers continuing to allocate advanced process capacity to high-performance server products, leading to persistent supply shortages. The demand surge driven by AI is supporting price increases for DRAM, even amidst weaker consumer demand.

The firm estimates that the production capacity allocated to PC DRAM may further decline in 2027. For server DRAM, the supply-demand imbalance is expected to continue. While prices for mobile and consumer DRAM are also set to rise, their price increases are anticipated to moderate.

In the NAND flash market, price increases for client SSDs will be more constrained, while enterprise SSDs are expected to see a larger price increase in Q4 2026. New procurement for embedded flash memory like eMMC and UFS remains limited. Downstream module manufacturers are adopting a more conservative approach to procuring NAND flash wafers, impacting market dynamics.