Update 3/30/2022 9:30am PT: Contrary to the rumors, Philips isn't venturing into the memory market. A representative from Philips has confirmed to Tom's Hardware that neither the company nor its brand license partners have any plans to branch out into the memory market.
Original Article:
According to some leaked photographs that originated from the BoardChannels forum, Philips will allegedly start selling memory soon. The company is readying both DDR4 and DDR5 memory kits to compete with the best RAM that's on the market.
The memory market is highly competitive, with many players, and profit margins are very low. So it won't be easy for even a company like Philips to establish its memory brand. However, the rumor claims that Philips will compete in the desktop and notebook memory segments, and we may see an official announcement from the company as soon as next week.
The photographs revealed Philips' DDR5-4800 32GB and DDR4-2666 8GB memory modules, although the latter has the wrong label. For the time being, it appears that Philips will play it safe and stick to JEDEC memory, similar to how Lexar started in the memory market. However, Lexar eventually started producing enthusiast-class memory, so it's plausible that Philips will try its hand at gaming memory further down the road.
We all know Philips as the multinational conglomerate giant that deals in everything from personal health to consumer electronics. Although not a household name in enthusiast circles, Philips commercializes many computer-related pieces of equipment, including gaming monitors, SSDs, and peripherals.
Memory pricing spiked during the pandemic due to the global semiconductor shortage. However, it has improved over the last couple of months, although DDR5 is still expensive. Philips' jump into the memory fray won't likely impact pricing, but if it indeed happens, it will provide consumers with another option to choose from when in the market for a DDR4 or DDR5 memory kit.
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Zhiye Liu is a news editor and memory reviewer at Tom’s Hardware. Although he loves everything that’s hardware, he has a soft spot for CPUs, GPUs, and RAM.