According to the latest enterprise SSD industry survey from TrendForce, the global revenue of the top five enterprise SSD brand manufacturers hit a new record high in the first quarter of 2026, driven by the proliferation of AI Agent services and strong orders from Cloud Service Providers (CSPs). Quarterly revenue grew by 86.1% compared to the previous quarter, surpassing $18.46 billion.
TrendForce notes that the market entered a state of supply-demand imbalance in the first quarter. With major suppliers' inventory levels dropping to historic lows, production could not keep pace with order growth. To maximize profits, suppliers aggressively pushed up prices, leading to a staggering 80% surge in contract prices for the quarter.
Revenue Performance of Major Enterprise SSD Brands
Samsung demonstrated strong supply resilience this quarter. Despite facing nearly doubled procurement demand from CSPs, which outpaced its production capacity, the company significantly expanded its supply capability by fully upgrading its product line to the 236-layer technology. Benefiting from the large-scale volume ramp of its 176-layer QLC products, Samsung's quarterly revenue reached $7.05 billion, a quarterly growth of 92.8%.
SK hynix Group also delivered a strong performance this quarter. Through the technological synergy between SK hynix and its subsidiary Solidigm, quarterly revenue reached $4.64 billion. Solidigm's QLC product shipments continued to climb, and combined with SK hynix's 176-layer TLC products, they successfully met the demand for AI Inference. Solidigm is currently accelerating its transition to the 240-layer process, while SK hynix's R&D department is already developing a 375-layer TLC product.
Micron decisively adjusted its production capacity structure this year, shifting resources significantly from the mobile and channel markets to enterprise SSDs. The benefits of this strategic shift are clearly reflected in its financial results. Benefiting from a substantial increase in production capacity supply, Micron's enterprise SSD revenue for the quarter surged to approximately $3.09 billion.
Kioxia saw its revenue grow to around $2.22 billion this quarter as its 218-layer products successively passed validation by North American customers and began volume shipments, coupled with increased market share among server brand vendors. Kioxia is expanding validation for its 245TB QLC products to boost shipment momentum in the second half of the year.
SanDisk demonstrated robust operational resilience this quarter, particularly as its strategic focus on high-capacity storage began to yield results. With bit shipments growing by 20%, quarterly revenue reached nearly $1.47 billion. Amid a global shortage of high-capacity QLC products, SanDisk's QLC enterprise SSDs have entered the shipment phase. As customer validation processes are progressively completed, QLC products are expected to become a key driver of SanDisk's revenue growth in the coming quarters, continuing to address the market's demand for high-capacity storage for AI training datasets.
TrendForce points out that SSDs are no longer just "data storage" warehouses but are beginning to take on the role of "computational assistants." From Micron's SLC SSD to Kioxia's XL-FLASH, suppliers are collectively proposing their own solutions for the storage needs of AI Agents. As the processing requirements for AI Agents increase substantially, the capacity bottlenecks and high cost of DRAM are forcing the market to accept high-performance SSDs as an alternative. This shift in technological pathways is expected to keep the enterprise SSD market on an upward trajectory in 2026.
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