Counterpoint: Memory Market Enters a “Super Cycle” as Prices Expected to Surge Further in H1 2026

According to a new report released on January 12 by Counterpoint Research, the global memory market has officially entered a so-called “super bull cycle,” with price momentum now surpassing the historic peak seen in 2018.

Counterpoint forecasts that memory prices will continue to rise sharply in Q1 2026, increasing by 40% to 50%, followed by an additional ~20% increase in Q2, indicating that supply-demand imbalances are unlikely to ease in the near term.

Taking server memory as an example, the average price of 64GB RDIMM DRAM jumped from approximately USD 255 (USD 0.50 per Gb) in Q3 2025 to USD 450 (USD 0.88 per Gb) in Q4. The firm expects prices to climb further to around USD 700 (USD 1.37 per Gb) by March 2026, with a potential upside reaching USD 1,000 (USD 1.95 per Gb) later in the year. For comparison, the previous market peak in 2018 stood at roughly USD 1.00 per Gb.

In the smartphone segment, flagship devices equipped with 16GB–24GB of LPDDR5X RAM and 512GB–1TB of UFS 4.0 storage are increasingly impacted by rising memory costs, which may now account for 20% or more of the total bill of materials (BoM).

On the supply side, Counterpoint estimates that global DRAM output will grow by around 24% year-over-year in 2026. However, demand driven by AI workloads, data centers, and premium consumer electronics is expected to continue outpacing supply in the short term.