SanDisk has reportedly raised its NAND flash contract prices by a staggering 50% for November, according to DigiTimes Asia. This move underscores a rapidly tightening memory market, driven by both unrelenting demand from AI data centers as well as tightly constrained wafer supply.
The report cites market sources who say SanDisk's pricing update sent a shockwave through the storage supply chain, prompting module makers such as Transcend, Innodisk, and Apacer Technology to pause shipments and re-evaluate quotes. Transcend, in particular, suspended quoting and deliveries starting November 7, anticipating "continued favorable market conditions." Translation: "prices are likely going higher before they settle down."
- Transcend reported consolidated Q3 2025 revenue of NT$4.11 billion (US$133 million) — up 27% quarter-over-quarter and 63% year-on-year — with gross margins hitting a beefy 45%. Net profit soared 334% year-on-year.
- Innodisk apparently saw revenue climb 64% year-on-year to NT$3.8 billion (US$123 million), with net profit up nearly 250%.
- Apacer Technology seemingly wasn't left behind either, raking in NT$3.22 billion (US$104 million) in the third quarter, up 70% from a year ago.
All three credited their performance to the supply concentration at wafer fabs, which are prioritizing the production of high-margin DRAM, such as DDR5 and HBM (High Bandwidth Memory), for AI servers and high-performance computing gear. The catch: older DDR4 products — still essential for industrial and enterprise systems — are now in shorter supply, further inflating prices downstream.
It's the same story we've seen across the chip industry all year: AI workloads are sucking the air out of the room. Fabs are dedicating more lines to cutting-edge memory for GPUs and accelerators, leaving commodity segments like consumer SSDs, embedded modules, and mainstream DDR4 short. The result? A structural shortage that's boosting profits for memory vendors while leaving OEMs and end-users scrambling. DigiTimes notes that Transcend expects "upward momentum" in the market to persist as companies balance price hikes with limited production capacity.
If you were thinking about upgrading your rig or expanding your data center capacity, it might be time to pull the trigger sooner rather than later. Between SanDisk's NAND flash hikes and ongoing DRAM shortages, prices across SSDs and memory modules are trending only one way, and it's not down. History suggests that when memory makers smell profit, they don't rush to expand supply overnight. With AI still chewing through every spare chip the industry can make, this shortage could stretch well into 2026 — unless the AI bubble abruptly pops, but then our economy will have bigger things to worry about.
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