Samsung warns RAM-pocalypse could last until 2028 as its profits continue to rise

Date:
Mon, 03 Aug 2026 18:20:00 +0000

Description:
Samsung says the memory shortage will persist through 2028 and worsen in 2027.

FULL STORY ======================================================================Copy link Facebook X Whatsapp Reddit Pinterest Flipboard Threads Email Share this article 0 Join the conversation Follow us Add us as a preferred source on Google Newsletter Subscribe to our newsletter Samsung tells analysts global memory supply shortage will persist through 2028 and grow more severe in 2027 than in 2026 This while posting its third consecutive record quarter: 171.5 trillion in revenue, 89.5 trillion in operating profit, and a 52% operating margin Samsung is locking 60 to 70% of capacity into five-year supply agreements with price floors Samsung has told analysts it believes the memory shortage now squeezing everything from server racks to gaming PCs is unlikely to ease before 2028, and that conditions will get worse before they get better.

Speaking on its Q2 2026 earnings call, the world's largest DRAM manufacturer now expects supply constraints to be more severe in 2027 than they are in 2026. The company said this while reporting the most profitable quarter in
its history, with 171.5 trillion in revenue, 89.5 trillion in operating profit, and a 52% operating margin, all of which indicated healthy demand for its DRAM despite price hikes across the board. Latest Videos From TechRadar Watch full video here: An AI-centric problem that is not going away soon As voracious demand for memory and storage from AI hyperscalers continues, Samsung is a key beneficiary of a shortage it expects to last for years, driven by long lead times and the capital intensity of adding capacity.

The argument Samsung made on its earnings call was arithmetic rather than speculative. B You may like Samsung ends dream of RAM crisis improvement, forecasting shortages in 2027 We may only have a year of the RAM crisis left if ex-Samsung boss is right RAM crisis could get much worse next year and might persist beyond 2030

uilding a new fab and getting it to wafer production takes more than three years, so the industry-wide capital expenditure increases now underway cannot translate into meaningful output within the forecast window. Unmet demand
from this year rolls into next year, tightening things further.

Independent forecasting broadly agrees. TrendForce expects NAND supply to
ease in the second half of 2027 as new capacity and higher-layer products arrive, but sees DRAM differently: several suppliers plan new lines for 2027, and construction, equipment installation and qualification will push meaningful ramp-up into the second half of that year, meaning substantial extra output does not arrive until 2028. Are you a pro? Subscribe to our newsletter Sign up to the TechRadar Pro newsletter to get all the top news, opinion, features and guidance your business needs to succeed! Contact me
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Samsung's own shipment figures show how tight things already are. DRAM bit shipments rose by low-teens percentages quarter on quarter, exceeding its own guidance, while average selling prices climbed by around 45% for DRAM and close to 70% for NAND in a single quarter. Hedging against potential
downsides Buried in the analyst Q&A is a structural change that will outlast any particular price curve. Samsung is converting the memory business from a spot market into a contracted one.

The company said it plans to allocate roughly 60 to 70% of total capacity to long-term supply agreements. These run on five-year terms subject to annual renegotiation, effectively rolling forward. What to read next AMD exec predicts that DDR5 RAM pricing won't normalize until 2028 Memory expert predicts huge RAM price hikes over the rest of 2026 The RAM crisis could get
a lot worse if Lenovo and Microsoft are right

It has already finalized deals with the top five global data center customers and is in final talks with five more, with substantial advance payments written in as a contractual requirement; Samsung says it has received about a quarter of that total so far. For mainstream products, the agreements also carry minimum price floors, set at levels the company describes as sufficient to cover its future investment risk.

The consequences reach retail. Gartner has forecast that combined DRAM and
SSD price increases will lift average PC prices by 17% and push global PC shipments down by more than 10% , the steepest contraction in over a decade.

Micron retired its consumer Crucial brand in February 2026 to concentrate on enterprise AI customers, which is the clearest possible statement of where
the industry's priorities sit despite whatever it says publicly about wanting to help consumers.

For Samsung's memory division, none of this is a problem. The price floors it has written into a majority of its capacity insulate it from the downside of the boom-and-bust cycle that DRAM markets are notorious for, and its own device businesses are absorbing the cost: mobile and networks posted a combined operating loss of 0.7 trillion for the quarter, and the display and TV units both flagged memory costs eating into profitability.

A company earning a mammoth 89.5 trillion in operating profit, thanks to a
52% operating margin, however, has little reason to move quickly on any of
it. Follow TechRadar on Google News and add us as a preferred source to get our expert news, reviews, and opinion in your feeds.



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Link to news story: https://www.techradar.com/computing/memory/samsung-warns-ram-pocalypse-could-l ast-until-2028-as-its-profits-continue-to-rise


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