Institutions: Comprehensive upward revision of Q1 DRAM and NAND Flash price growth forecasts for all products.
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Institutions: Memory prices were supported by AI servers in the third quarter, but increasing pressure on the consumer side caused the price increase to slow down.
Mars Finance reported on July 3rd that, according to TrendForce's latest memory price survey, the overall DRAM market will remain extremely tight in the third quarter of 2026. However, due to downward revisions in consumer application demand and the high base effect, contract price increases will be limited, with a projected quarter-on-quarter increase of 13-18%. NAND Flash demand will still be primarily supported by AI inference and large-scale data center construction. However, as contract prices have reached historical highs, consumer customers' price tolerance has reached its limit amid slowing demand. Overall NAND Flash contract prices are estimated to increase by 10-15% quarter-on-quarter, a significantly smaller increase than in previous quarters. (Wide Angle Observation)
Nomura refutes the "semiconductor market has peaked" theory: An "epic gap" is coming; price increases and upward profit revisions remain the biggest catalysts.
Mars Finance reports that Nomura warns the AI semiconductor cycle is far from peaking, with a potentially "epic" supply chain mismatch expected in the second half of 2026. As cloud vendors continue to expand their capital expenditures, shortages of advanced packaging, PCBs, and CCLs will drive price increases and upward revisions to earnings. While TSMC is aggressively expanding its wafer-level packaging capacity, the real supply bottleneck will shift to wafer-level substrates (WoS) and smaller components such as printed circuit boards (PCBs) and copper-clad laminates (CCLs). This structural shortage will directly exacerbate short-term market price volatility, but it also confirms the long-term sustainability of this cycle. (Cailian Press)
ADATA: Memory prices will rise by 20%-30% in Q3, and flash memory prices will rise by 35%-40%.
Mars Finance reports that ADATA Technology has warned of another price increase for DRAM and NAND flash memory in the third quarter of 2026, further driving up the prices of memory and storage products. ADATA Chairman Chen Libai stated that major memory manufacturers have already announced that DRAM contract prices will continue to rise by 20% to 30% in the third quarter of 2026, while NAND flash memory prices will increase by 35% to 40%. The continued rise in prices for both types of memory chips is expected to continue to drive the company's operating performance growth. (Cailian Press)
UBS raised its target price for SK Hynix to 3.2 million won and maintained its buy rating.
According to a report by Odaily, SK Hynix is continuing to push for more revised long-term agreements, focusing on DDR5 and NAND Flash for hyperscale data center customers. These contracts have terms exceeding five years, with approximately 60% to 70% of the expected volume and price already locked in, which will improve future earnings visibility. Based on a projected price-to-book ratio of 3.65 for the next 12 months, UBS has raised its target price for SK Hynix from 3 million won to 3.2 million won and maintained its buy rating. SK Hynix began ramping up HBM4 shipments for its Rubin platform in the second quarter, indicating that it has completed final design adjustments to meet specifications. While Samsung Electronics' HBM bit market share may be slightly higher than SK Hynix's in 2027 (41% vs. 39%), in the long term, HBM's share in SK Hynix's DRAM business is expected to be higher than its peers. UBS predicts that HBM's share of DRAM revenue will rise from 15% in 2026 to 58% in 2030. Further increases in the average selling price of HBM will provide additional support for profitability in 2027. UBS stated that shareholder reward policies are expected to continue to strengthen, and anticipates share buybacks to begin after the ADR listing and gradually accelerate. UBS points out that DDR and NAND Flash contract pricing still has room for further increases in the second half of 2026. Considering the revised long-term agreements and HBM, UBS forecasts a 43% quarter-on-quarter increase in DRAM average selling prices in Q2 2026, a 21% increase in Q3, and a 13% increase in Q4; for NAND, it expects a 43% quarter-on-quarter increase in the mixed average selling price in Q2, a 25% increase in Q3, and a 10% increase in Q4. Taking into account the upward revision of average selling price forecasts, UBS has raised its SK Hynix operating profit forecast by 7% to 327 trillion won this year, and by 12% each for the next two years to 623 trillion won and 667 trillion won.
UBS has again raised its price forecast for memory chips, saying the DRAM shortage is expected to continue until 2028.
According to Mars Finance, on July 3rd, UBS stated that based on industry research, it has raised its benchmark forecast for DDR contract prices to a 32% quarter-on-quarter increase in Q3 2026 and an 18% quarter-on-quarter increase in Q4 2026, up from previous forecasts of 17% and 12% respectively. UBS continues to expect the DRAM industry to remain in a supply shortage until at least 2028. By 2027, the gap between DRAM demand growth and supply growth is projected to widen to 17%. Assuming no downstream inventory digestion in 2027, meaning that customers still have sufficient inventory after restocking in the second half of 2026, the supply deficit ratio will worsen from 8.1% in 2026 to 13.6% in 2027. UBS stated that both of these levels are unseen in the past 30 years. Regarding NAND flash memory, UBS currently forecasts a 30% quarter-over-quarter price increase in Q3 2026 and a 12% quarter-over-quarter increase in Q4, and expects the NAND uptrend to continue until at least Q4 2027. UBS has also raised its revenue forecast for the memory industry to $992 billion in 2026 and $1.763 trillion in 2027. The main risk lies in the affordability of hyperscale cloud service providers, especially as they still need to access capital markets to finance capital expenditures.
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