According to Omdia, the DRAM market is experiencing an unprecedented upswing driven by strong artificial intelligence demand. Shipments are projected to grow by over 50% year-over-year in 2025, with growth accelerating further in 2026. As DRAM production continues to lag behind demand, supply shortages are expected to intensify in 2026. The NAND market is also facing tightening supply and gradually rising prices. NAND industry revenue is anticipated to peak in 2026 before gradually returning to a normal cycle, though overall levels will remain significantly above historical averages, demonstrating lasting resilience and structural advantages.
DRAM demand dynamics have expanded from initial model training to encompass inference tasks and emerging workloads like AI agents. Structural supply constraints—such as concentrated High Bandwidth Memory (HBM) capacity and limited cleanroom resources—further bolster the market's pricing power. Memory has become a critical system performance bottleneck, underpinning long-term price resilience. Robust server-driven demand is rapidly depleting inventories for both buyers and suppliers, limiting the ability to use stockpiles to mitigate shortages. Consequently, even if nominal production growth improves, supply tightness in 2026 could be more severe than in 2025.
In the NAND market, recent contract price negotiations for enterprise SSDs (eSSD) and client SSDs (cSSD) have exceeded expectations. Multiple verifications indicate quarterly price increases exceeding 60% for eSSDs and cSSDs, with some transaction prices even doubling (approximately 100% quarter-over-quarter growth). Module price increases continue to outpace NAND supplier quotes, and recent transactions show similar quarterly gains, further confirming supply tightness and the upward price trend. Omdia believes the NAND average selling price (ASP) per gigabyte across various applications will approach approximately $0.15/GB in Q1 2026 (a 70% sequential increase) and reach $0.18/GB in Q2 2026 (a 25% sequential increase).
NAND supply is expected to remain tight in Q1 2026, primarily driven by strong eSSD demand from cloud service providers (CSPs) continuously building AI infrastructure. In contrast, Omdia forecasts a decline in full-year PC and smartphone shipments for 2026. Dataram's NAND business revenue reached $2.7 billion (a 22% sequential increase), exceeding Omdia's expectations; its bit shipments achieved mid-to-high single-digit growth, with ASPs rising around 15%. For the 2026 calendar year, Dataram targets approximately 20% bit shipment growth but still anticipates an overall decline in customer demand.
NAND wafer prices continued to climb in January, with month-over-month increases ranging from mid-single digits to double-digit percentages. Prices for SLC and MLC NAND maintained their upward trend. Since last quarter, a few major NAND suppliers have begun phasing out older node capacity. Mainstream density TLC and QLC products rose sharply in January, with month-over-month increases of 25%–40%, and spot transaction prices for some 1TB products surged over 50% month-over-month.
In the NOR market, the average selling price continues to strengthen. Price increases are widespread across server/PC, automotive, industrial, and consumer applications, reflecting solid demand support. Although overall shipments remain stable, revenue growth is primarily driven by increased storage density per device. In terms of applications, global demand for NOR Flash for servers and computers remains strong; growth in True Wireless Stereo (TWS) earbuds, automotive, and industrial sectors relies more on the penetration of higher-density products. Serial NOR still accounts for over 96% of all shipments, dominating the market landscape.
Looking ahead, ASPs are forecast to remain high through 2026-2027 before gradually returning to conventional levels in the long term. As the market matures, demand from consumer, automotive, and industrial applications remains solid, indicating a sustainable foundation for structural growth for this category.
The long-term revenue forecast for the NOR Flash market anticipates a steady recovery to $3.54 billion by 2026, rather than a rapid rebound. Demand continues to normalize following the post-pandemic correction, though the automotive sector remains below peak levels, and industrial demand is gradually improving. Inventory conditions are healthier than a year ago, but end-market visibility remains mixed. Revenue is projected to reach $4.03 billion in 2027, primarily through gradual growth rather than a step-change in shipments. The automotive sector remains the largest contributor, driven by increasing software complexity and higher NOR density per vehicle.