On January 27, two semiconductor companies, China Micro Semiconductor and Goke Microelectronics, successively issued price increase notices, indicating that prices for some of their chip products will rise to varying degrees.
The price adjustment notice released by China Micro Semiconductor stated that due to factors such as the current industry-wide chip supply shortage and rising costs, delivery cycles for packaged finished products have lengthened, costs have increased significantly compared to before, and expenses for substrates and packaging & testing have also continued to rise.
Given the severe supply-demand situation and substantial cost pressures, after careful consideration, the company decided to adjust prices for products including MCUs and Norflash effective immediately, with increases ranging from 15% to 50%.
According to industry chain sources, another semiconductor company, Goke Microelectronics, also issued a price increase notice to its customers.
Goke Microelectronics announced that starting in January, it would raise prices for its Known Good Die (KGD) products by 40% for the 512Mb configuration, by 60% for the 1Gb configuration, and by 80% for the 2Gb configuration, while prices for products with external DDR would be notified separately.
The current uptick in memory chip prices is primarily driven by the sustained surge in demand for AI servers.
The massive consumption of high-performance memory chips by AI servers has led to a structural shortage in chip supply for traditional sectors like consumer electronics and industrial control.
This supply-demand imbalance has been further exacerbated by the capacity allocation strategies of major memory manufacturers, with some shifting more production capacity towards the high-margin server market.
Data from TrendForce shows that the price of DDR5 DRAM chips in the fourth quarter increased by 314% compared to the same period last year.
As major DRAM manufacturers shift advanced processes and new capacity en masse towards Server and HBM applications to meet AI Server demand, supply for other markets has become severely constrained.
The agency forecasts that contract prices for traditional DRAM this quarter will rise by 55% to 60% compared to the fourth quarter of last year, while contract prices for NAND flash products are expected to increase by 33% to 38%.
Informed sources stated that Samsung Electronics and SK Hynix plan to increase server DRAM (Dynamic Random Access Memory) prices by 60%-70% in the first quarter of 2026 compared to the fourth quarter of 2025.
The report also mentioned that the two companies have proposed price increases of a similar magnitude to their PC and smartphone DRAM customers.
Counterpoint Research predicts that DDR5 prices will increase by 40% quarter-on-quarter this quarter, with a further 20% rise expected in the second quarter.
DDR5 is the latest generation of traditional DRAM currently used in computers and servers.
Sanjeev Rana, Head of Korea Research at CLSA, stated that in the fourth quarter of 2025, the average selling price (ASP) of DRAM chips increased by over 30% quarter-on-quarter, while the ASP of NAND flash increased by approximately 20% quarter-on-quarter.
"Hyperscale data center operators and cloud service providers are procuring DRAM in large volumes and are willing to pay a premium," Rana said, adding that the strong pricing trend is expected to persist throughout 2026 and even into the first half of 2027.
"Even after that, prices may not fall significantly because demand is too strong, while supply remains tight."
Nomura Securities believes that this memory super cycle, which began in the second half of 2025, will last until at least 2027, and that any truly meaningful new supply is unlikely to emerge until early 2028 at the earliest.
The Nomura analyst team stated that investors should continue to overweight leading memory stocks in 2026, focusing on the triple play of memory chip prices, profits, and valuations as the main investment theme for 2026, rather than viewing memory solely through the lens of HBM.
The institution expects the three major memory chip companies (Samsung Electronics, SK Hynix, Micron Technology) to achieve record-high profits.
Related concept stocks: SMIC (00981): Financial reports show that SMIC's third-quarter sales revenue was $2.382 billion, a year-on-year increase of 9.7%; its gross margin was 22%, up 1.6 percentage points quarter-on-quarter.
Capacity utilization rose to 95.8%, an increase of 3.3 percentage points quarter-on-quarter.
In terms of product platforms, the ultra-low-power 28nm logic process has entered mass production, providing customers with lower-power, higher-quality solutions.
The CIS image sensor and ISP signal processing technologies continue to iterate, improving light sensitivity, image quality, and high signal-to-noise ratio, while an optical process platform covering more wavelengths is under development.
The embedded memory platform is expanding from consumer markets to automotive-grade and industrial MCU (Microcontroller Unit) fields.
Specialty memories like Nor and NAND (both non-volatile) offer higher density, smaller size, lower power consumption, and high-reliability memory platforms.
HUA HONG SEMI (01347): Financial reports show that HUA HONG SEMI's third-quarter revenue reached $635.2 million, a year-on-year increase of 20.7%; its gross margin was 13.5%, up 1.3 percentage points year-on-year and 2.6 percentage points quarter-on-quarter.
Benefiting from increased demand for flash memory, logic, and analog products, revenue from HUA HONG SEMI's 65nm and more advanced processes grew 47.7% year-on-year, accounting for 27.1% of total sales revenue.
SHANGHAI FUDAN (01385): As a domestic chip design company with a relatively broad product line, its business encompasses four major product lines: security and identification chips, non-volatile memory, smart meter chips, and Field-Programmable Gate Arrays (FPGAs).
Through its controlling subsidiary, Hualing Co., Ltd., the company provides chip testing services to customers.
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