TrendForce's memory spot price update published on July 8 showed that DRAM and NAND Flash are facing entirely different challenges. In DRAM, chip prices for DDR3 and 4Gb DDR4 rose slightly even as trading volume failed to grow. In NAND, meanwhile, buyer procurement appetite has weakened significantly even as suppliers loosen their asking prices in an effort to adjust inventory.
This divergence is difficult to grasp if one simply views the memory market through the lens of "everything is rising due to AI demand." In DRAM, while devices requiring older-generation components still remain in use, major manufacturers' capacity tends to be directed toward higher-value-added server products. In NAND, upstream prices have risen so much that module makers and device makers have found it harder to build up additional inventory. High prices persist. But the limits of buyers have also come into view.
What the Slight DRAM Rise Reveals About Pressure on Legacy Generations
According to TrendForce, many buyers in the DRAM spot market continue to take a wait-and-see stance, and overall trading volume remains quite limited. Even so, chip prices for DDR3 and 4Gb DDR4 rose slightly from the previous week. The average spot price for DDR4 1Gx8 3200MT/s, considered mainstream, rose from $36.10 on July 1 to $37.14 on July 7, an increase of 2.88%.
TrendForce's DRAM price table, updated at 18:10 (GMT+8) on July 8, also shows temperature differences across generations. The session average for DDR5 16Gb 4800/5600 was $47.067, unchanged. DDR4 16Gb 3200 fell 0.32% to $76.925, while DDR4 8Gb 3200 rose 0.54% to $37.34. DDR3 4Gb 1600/1866 also rose 0.59% to $12.825.
Though the figures may appear small, their significance is not trivial. Legacy DRAM generations are no longer the mainstay of the latest PCs, but they cannot be easily replaced in industrial equipment, networking equipment, or embedded devices. The same holds for products requiring long-term maintenance support. Changing a design requires reselecting components and revising circuit boards, followed by verification and certification. Even if prices rise, buyers of products that require these components have no choice but to purchase them.
Moreover, prices for legacy products can move even without a surge in demand. If suppliers direct their capacity toward DDR5, server DRAM, and HBM, the remaining capacity for mature generations shrinks. This is why, even when overall market trading volume is thin, prices rise only for specific capacities or generations. July's DRAM spot market reflects not robust buying, but localized tightness around limited supply.
Why NAND Buyers Aren't Moving Even as Prices Fall
The NAND Flash spot market presents the opposite picture. TrendForce explained that suppliers have continued to loosen their asking prices in order to adjust inventory. However, buyers have become extremely passive about building up stock. Buyers have moved past the stage of accepting any order and have reached the limits of their cost tolerance.
The spot price for 512Gb TLC wafers fell 2.87% during the week of July 6, to $19.293. According to TrendForce's public price table, the session average for 512Gb TLC wafers as of 14:40 (GMT+8) on June 29 was $19.862, with a session change rate of -1.03%. The price has fallen further from there.
What makes this NAND situation difficult to read is that price cuts have not immediately led to a recovery in demand. Downstream module makers and device makers find it hard to pass on higher upstream material costs to product prices. For SSDs, memory cards, and USB drives, price increases don't stick easily when consumer demand isn't strong. Smartphone and PC storage face the same pressure. If costs cannot be passed on to selling prices, the incentive to rapidly stock up on cheaper wafers also weakens.
In other words, the decline in NAND spot prices is not a signal that supply has become sufficient. Rather, it more closely resembles a situation in which trading volume has thinned at elevated price levels, and suppliers are adjusting prices in order to move inventory. TrendForce's related report summary also explains that in the NAND Flash wafer market, historically high prices have significantly squeezed the profit margins of downstream module makers, prompting buyers to adopt a defensive procurement stance.
Slowing Contract Price Growth and Falling Spot Prices Don't Mean the Same Thing
Spot prices and contract prices play different roles even though they both reflect the same memory market. Spot prices capture the temperature of the market for procuring components in short supply on short notice. Contract prices are closer to the prices negotiated over multi-month periods by PC makers, smartphone makers, cloud service providers, and others. Even if short-term NAND spot prices fall, it doesn't necessarily mean that device makers' material costs will lighten immediately.
On July 4, Tom's Hardware reported, based on TrendForce's Q3 price survey, that general-purpose DRAM contract prices are expected to rise 13-18% quarter-over-quarter in Q3 2026, while NAND Flash contract prices are expected to rise 10-15%. This represents a slowdown from the roughly 60% increase seen in Q2. However, the same article explains that the reason for this slowdown is not improved supply, but rather that consumer electronics makers are finding it increasingly difficult to absorb high memory prices.
This connects directly to the July 8 spot update. In DRAM, a sense of shortage remains for legacy products, while in NAND, buyers have become less able to tolerate high prices. It's hard to say that prices have "normalized" in either case. Upward pressure and buyers' inability to purchase are colliding within the same market.
As long as demand for AI servers remains strong, memory manufacturers will likely continue prioritizing high-margin server DRAM, HBM, and enterprise SSD-oriented NAND. As a result, components for PCs and smartphones move differently item by item, even when overall supply-demand balance hasn't loosened. The same selective pressure extends to components for consumer storage and industrial equipment. The rise in legacy DRAM and the fall in 512Gb TLC are separate symptoms stemming from the same underlying supply constraints.
What Matters Next Is Trading Volume, Not Price Levels
The next key indicator is trading volume, rather than price levels themselves. For DRAM, it's necessary to observe whether the slight rise in DDR3 and 4Gb DDR4 is accompanied by real demand, or whether limited orders are simply pushing up prices amid thin trading. If it's the former, material costs for embedded devices and long-maintenance-cycle products are likely to rise further. If it's the latter, the movement will likely remain a short-term fluctuation amid continued buyer caution.
For NAND, where the decline in 512Gb TLC wafer prices bottoms out will serve as a marker. If buyers don't increase inventory even as prices fall, suppliers' inventory adjustments will likely drag on. Conversely, if prices fall to a level downstream can accept, short-term buy-backs may enter the spot market. Even in that case, however, there will be a time lag before the effects reach contract prices and finished product prices.
What is happening in the memory market in July is not the beginning of a supply-demand easing, but rather buyer selectivity. In DRAM, movement to secure necessary legacy products persists, while in NAND, the tendency to curb procurement in the face of high prices has strengthened. As long as upstream AI demand constrains capacity allocation, the market won't loosen across the board. To gauge material prices in the second half of the year, one needs to track not average prices, but which generations are actually seeing orders return.