Has the unprecedented semiconductor memory bubble arrived?

The price of semiconductor memory DRAM is rising further. The wholesale transaction prices for benchmark products in November–December 2025 increased by 40% compared with the prices reached in the previous round of negotiations in September. Major global companies are prioritizing shipments to AI server equipment for data centers, leading to insufficient supply of benchmark products for everyday sectors such as personal computers (PCs). It is difficult for demand-side parties to secure the required quantities.

DRAM is installed in equipment such as PCs, smartphones, and data-center servers, and is used for temporary data storage. Wholesale transaction prices are determined through monthly or quarterly negotiations among the memory manufacturers acting as sellers, the device manufacturers acting as buyers, and module makers.

Due to supply shortfalls, a rare situation occurred in October 2025 in which wholesale transaction prices could not be formed. Although prices were set for November–December, “we were unable to procure the quantities we wanted” (a senior executive at an electronics trading company). Others have also pointed out that DDR5 and previous-generation products DDR3 rose by 40% to 2 times and 2 to 4 times, respectively, in the period from October to December 2025 compared with the previous quarter. A senior executive at another trading firm said, “An unprecedented semiconductor memory bubble that has spread beyond benchmark products has already arrived.”

To continue reading, please click here to visit the Nikkei Chinese website

Nikkei Inc. and the Financial Times merged in November 2015 to become the same media group. An alliance formed by two newspaper companies—one from Japan and one from the UK—both founded in the 19th century is advancing broad-based cooperation such as joint special features under the banner of “high-quality, the strongest economic journalism.” This time, as part of those efforts, article exchanges have been carried out between the two newspapers’ Chinese websites.