TrendForce: Contract prices are rising rapidly, with first-quarter revenue in the DRAM industry increasing by 81% to reach $97 billion.

According to the latest storage industry survey by TrendForce, in the first quarter of 2026, due to the accelerated rise in the contract price of Conventional DRAM, the quarter-over-quarter growth rate reached as high as 93-98%, driving the overall industry revenue to grow by 81% to reach $97 billion. With AI applications gradually shifting from training large language models (LLM) to AI inference, the focus of cloud service providers' data center construction has extended from AI servers to general-purpose servers, leading to an expansion of memory procurement demand from HBM3e, LPDDR5X, and high-capacity RDIMM products to various capacity specifications of RDIMM products. Looking at the second quarter, due to extremely low OEM inventory levels and the prioritization of new supply to provide large-capacity RDIMM for AI server usage, it is expected that the overall growth of Conventional DRAM shipments will be quite limited. In terms of pricing, because CSPs maintain a relatively open attitude, encouraging other customers to follow suit to ensure original factory supply, it is expected that the Conventional DRAM contract price will still be supported with a quarter-over-quarter increase of 58-63%. Analyzing the revenue performance of major DRAM suppliers in the first quarter, Samsung, ranking first, saw a significant increase in the average selling price (ASP) of its products and had the highest share of Server DRAM revenue, pushing its first-quarter revenue to 93.4%, reaching $37.32 billion, and increasing its market share to 38.5%. SK hynix had the highest proportion of HBM shipments among the top three manufacturers, but the decline in HBM contract prices in 2026 restrained the overall price increase of its products. Its first-quarter revenue reached $27.98 billion, with a quarter-over-quarter growth of 62.5%, ranking second and adjusting its market share to 28.8%. Third-placed Micron saw a revenue growth of 81.6% in the first quarter, rising to $21.75 billion, maintaining a market share of 22.4% from the previous quarter. TrendForce stated that the upward trend in Conventional DRAM contract prices continued in the first quarter, with the top three manufacturers tending towards high-priced, high-profit margins for Server application products. With the establishment of a supply shortage and the need for clean room construction still requiring time, major manufacturers in 2026 will mainly expand supply through process upgrades, with only a slight increase in production scale through process optimization. Nanya, Winbond, and PSMC focus on mature process products to fill the market demand that cannot be met by the top three manufacturers after transitioning processes. In the first quarter, Nanya had significantly reduced its own inventory, with significant price increases for DDR4 and DDR3 contracts driving a 60% quarterly revenue growth to reach $1.55 billion. Winbond expanded its DDR4 and LPDDR4 shipments in the first quarter, achieving a quarter-over-quarter revenue growth of 91.4% to nearly $570 million. PSMC saw a revenue growth of 29.9% for its Consumer DRAM products manufactured in-house, reaching $43 million, while its contract manufacturing revenue saw a 19.3% quarter-over-quarter increase. It is expected that the company will actively expand its supply after obtaining Micron's process technology authorization.