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Memory suppliers just blew a hole in the PC gaming industry – and they’re about to do the same to everything else. For weeks, PC enthusiasts have borne the brunt of skyrocketing memory prices, but the shockwaves will soon impact a wider range of products as suppliers pour resources into a far bigger and more lucrative endeavor: AI.
The biggest names in the AI industry are buying up DRAM memory for their sprawling data centers, and memory makers are prioritizing their demands over everyone else’s. DRAM is embedded “in every part of our digital society today,” Jeff Janukowicz, research VP at IDC, tells The Verge. That’s everything from laptops to smartphones, gaming consoles, smart TVs, cars, and even small amounts in solid-state drives (SSDs). “There’s a lot at stake,” he says.
The smartphone upgrade you’ve been eyeing might cost even more next year: the 12GB of memory in a flagship Samsung Galaxy smartphone now reportedly costs the company nearly $40 more. IDC is already predicting fewer smartphone sales in 2026 due to the RAM shortage, and a $9 increase in average phone prices. Some brands, like China’s Xiaomi, are already warning customers of future price hikes. Laptop manufacturers may cut corners, and price increases might be coming to gaming consoles.
“If you are not a server customer, you will be considered a second priority.”
Today, just three companies — Samsung, SK Hynix, and Micron — control 93 percent of the entire global DRAM market. Specifically, data from Counterpoint Research shows SK Hynix holding a 38 percent market share in the second quarter of 2025, followed by Samsung at 32 percent and Micron at 23 percent. No other company has more than a 5 percent share.
And the three big RAM companies seem to be in no great hurry to reverse sky-high prices; all three boasted about record revenue in their most recent earnings reports, while their net profits exploded. They don’t seem troubled that data centers are eating up RAM that’d normally appear in consumer products, either.
For Samsung, memory is bigger than most consumer products anyhow. Samsung’s memory business raked in a record 26.7 trillion Korean won (~$18.12 billion) in its most recent earnings report, making up more than a quarter of its total revenue. That’s nearly double what its entire appliance and TV business made during that time.
So far, Micron, which raked in a record-breaking $11.32 billion in the fourth quarter of 2025, made the most dramatic change in response to DRAM demand. It announced that it’s winding down its longstanding consumer-facing brand, Crucial, so it can focus on supplying AI companies with the memory they need to power their servers. “If you are not a server customer, you will be considered a second priority for memory vendors,” Gartner analyst Shrish Pant tells The Verge.
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