Counterpoint Research forecasts continued upward pressure on memory prices through 2025 and into early 2026, citing a potential 30 percent rise in DRAM prices in the fourth quarter of 2025 followed by up to 20 percent more in early 2026. Those projected gains would come on top of roughly 50 percent increases already recorded this year. The research note highlights that the current pricing pressure is concentrated on older memory types as manufacturers shift capacity toward newer parts used in Artificial Intelligence hardware.
The report calls out unusual price differentials across memory types, reporting DDR5 for PCs and servers trading around $1.50 per gigabit while DDR4, common in low-end phones and consumer gear, is selling for about $2.10; HBM3e is noted as roughly $1.70 in the same dataset. Counterpoint also flags a strategic risk from NVIDIA’s plan to adopt LPDDR in future Artificial Intelligence systems, which would place NVIDIA’s demand at levels comparable to a major smartphone vendor. That move could stretch the LPDDR supply chain in ways it has not previously experienced and shift error correction responsibilities away from DDR5 ECC modules onto the CPU, with potential implications for server architecture.
In a tight supply scenario the firm warns DDR5 RDIMM prices could double between early 2025 and the end of 2026. For now the worst effects are hitting budget smartphones that still depend on LPDDR4, but analysts cited in the report expect strain to spread to mid-range and high-end devices, increasing bill-of-materials by as much as 25 percent for some models and risking squeezed margins or slower shipment growth. Counterpoint notes that DRAM output is expected to grow by more than 20 percent in 2026 as Samsung, SK hynix, Micron and China’s CXMT ramp production, but broader risks such as tariffs, geopolitics and labor costs keep the outlook volatile.
