Lenovo: Rising Memory Prices Are the "New Normal"; High DRAM and NAND Prices to Persist Beyond 2030

The era of high memory prices may not be ending. At the ISC 2026 conference, LENOVO GROUP issued a warning: DRAM and NAND flash memory prices have entered a structural upward cycle. Even as major manufacturers continue to expand production, it will be extremely difficult for prices to fall back to early 2025 levels, with price increases ultimately becoming the "new normal" in 2030 and beyond.

During its presentation at the conference, Lenovo displayed price trend charts for DRAM and NAND products. According to its analysis, although major memory manufacturers such as Samsung, SK Hynix, and Micron are accelerating the construction of new production capacity, the effects of this expansion are insufficient to bridge the supply-demand gap, suggesting that prices will remain high for the long term. Meanwhile, Micron has publicly stated that it cannot meet market demand, including that of strategic customers, while Samsung and SK Hynix have sent similar signals, indicating that the tight supply situation is unlikely to ease in the short term.

This assessment has profound implications for the entire consumer electronics supply chain. Lenovo warned that high memory costs will be passed down to PCs, gaming consoles, smartphones, and all terminal products equipped with memory or solid-state drives (SSDs). Consumers will face sustained pressure from rising device prices over the next decade.

Price Surge Began in Late 2025 and Has Not Stopped

According to data presented by Lenovo at the ISC 2026 conference, the rapid rise in memory prices began in late Q3 to early Q4 of 2025. At that time, DRAM and NAND prices broke away from their previous cyclical fluctuation range, accelerating upward to highs that the market had generally not anticipated.

Lenovo pointed out that although major manufacturers are continuously advancing capacity expansion and building new fabs to address the supply-demand imbalance, these measures have had very limited actual effect on lowering prices. The speed at which the supply-demand gap is widening has outpaced the ramp-up of production capacity, making it increasingly unlikely that prices will return to early 2025 levels.

Notably, while the relevant comments made by Lenovo speakers at the conference carried a somewhat joking tone, their judgment that high prices will become normalized in 2030 and beyond is still regarded as a formal industry warning signal.

Suppliers' Expansion Plans Fail to Quench Immediate Thirst

Among major memory manufacturers, SK Hynix has announced that it is significantly advancing its capacity expansion roadmap, originally scheduled for implementation after 2040, to the period after 2030. It expects to triple its memory output to existing levels before that timeframe.

However, both Lenovo and industry observers remain reserved about whether this expansion plan can truly alleviate the supply-demand contradiction. Micron has explicitly stated that it cannot currently provide sufficient supply, even to strategically important customers. Samsung and SK Hynix have expressed similarly pessimistic views, with several top-tier manufacturers actually leveraging this supply shortage cycle to secure substantial profits.

Against the backdrop of continuing explosive growth in AI infrastructure demand, the growth rate for high-bandwidth memory (HBM) and general-purpose DRAM remains strong. Whether the additional supply brought by capacity expansion can match the concurrent increase in demand remains unknown.

End Consumers Under Pressure; Price Hikes Across All Device Categories Unavoidable

Lenovo's warning implies that high prices for memory and SSDs will continue to be passed through to end-products over the next decade. PCs, gaming consoles, smartphones, and other consumer electronics equipped with storage components will all bear higher material cost pressures.

For ordinary consumers, this means the era of low-priced PCs and entry-level smart devices may be coming to an end. The enterprise sector is not exempt either—procurement costs for servers and data center infrastructure will rise in tandem with memory prices, further raising the overall investment threshold for AI and cloud computing infrastructure.

Lenovo's proactive disclosure of this assessment at the ISC 2026 conference has been interpreted by the industry as a forward-looking budgetary warning for procurement decision-makers and corporate clients: high memory prices are not a temporary shock, but a structural variable that needs to be incorporated into long-term cost planning.