No hope for storage price drop! Apacer warns: DRAM and enterprise SSD supply-demand imbalance to last at least until first half of next year.

According to reports from on July 27, the CEO of memory module manufacturer Apacer recently stated that as the three major global DRAM manufacturers allocate almost all of their new production capacity to AI-related products, supply to the general market continues to shrink, making it difficult to alleviate the supply-demand imbalance in the short term.

He pointed out that the new production capacity of the three major manufacturers is now highly concentrated in AI application areas such as HBM, server DDR5, and LPDDR5X, while the allocation of DRAM chips for general DDR5, DDR4, and the industrial control market is continuously decreasing. Currently, the biggest challenge faced by module manufacturers is no longer pricing, but insufficient supply.

According to the manufacturers' subsequent supply plans, the DRAM supply available to module manufacturers will further decline in the future.

Not only are procurement prices rising continuously, but module manufacturers are also rushing to build up inventories to avoid the risk of having no products to sell in the future.

He admitted that even as procurement costs keep rising, they must stock up in advance: "Buying at higher prices still allows business to be done, but if you can't get the goods, there's simply no business to be done."

Currently, the trend of tight supply is still relatively certain until the first half of 2027; as for the direction after the second half of 2027, it will depend on the manufacturers' expansion pace and changes in AI demand.