DRAM for general users may be in short supply until 2028.

 

For those waiting for a price drop in RAM and hoping the memory market will return to normal soon, you might need to prepare yourself for a slower pace. SK Hynix, a major global memory manufacturer, has estimated that the shortage of DRAM for consumer use is likely to persist until 2028, potentially pressuring the consumer market for several years.

This view comes from an internal analysis by SK Hynix, published by user X under the username BullsLab. The document indicates that the global memory market continues to face an imbalance between supply and demand. While HBM memory and AI solutions are rapidly expanding due to data center investment, commodity DRAM used in PCs, gaming, and general consumer devices is facing limited production capacity growth in the coming years.

A key factor behind this problem is that major memory manufacturers are allocating resources to higher-yielding markets, such as HBM for AI accelerators or high-capacity DRAM for servers and data centers. This has de-emphasized consumer production capacity, while low memory stock levels force manufacturers to adopt supply-control strategies, avoiding aggressive production increases to maintain price stability and profitability.

Signs of supply tightening are becoming more apparent in the retail market, particularly with the case of Lexar DDR5, which has product listings showing delivery dates extending until 2027. This is seen as unusual for the general consumer market and reflects a growing trend of memory manufacturers and brands planning for longer-term supply chains to address future uncertainties.

Overall, SK Hynix acknowledges that despite continued investment in new factories like the M15X, focused on AI memory production, and plans to open the Yongin factory in 2027 to increase long-term DRAM production capacity, the consumer market will inevitably face supply constraints in the period before these projects are fully operational.

Given this situation, PC users, gamers, and those planning hardware upgrades may need to prepare for high-priced and scarce memory for several years to come, especially in an era where the AI ​​and data center industries continue to heavily utilize memory resources, and there are no clear signs that market tightness will ease in the near future.