The spot market for memory split in two directions. According to weekly data TrendForce published on September 30, 2026, mainstream DDR4 chips rose 0.93% week over week, while 512Gb TLC NAND wafers fell 2.45%.
Trading in both was sluggish, though. In DRAM, holidays in several regions slowed the activity of market participants.
On the same day, TrendForce also projected that NAND contract prices will rise 15–20% quarter over quarter in the fourth quarter. If buyers are still sitting on the sidelines, why are prices expected to rise next quarter? To understand the background, you need to look at demand and supply separately for each use, such as PCs and servers.
Holidays dampen trading, yet DDR4 prices rise
The average spot price of DDR4 1Gx8 3200MT/s, the key benchmark tracked in TrendForce's weekly update, rose from $45.89 on September 23 to $46.32 on September 29. That is a week-over-week increase of 0.93%.
That does not mean the market became active. In addition to the holiday effect, buyers kept a cautious purchasing stance, and prices moved within a narrow range.
A price increase does not necessarily mean orders grew significantly. TrendForce also described trading as sluggish, and its freely available article does not disclose specific transaction volumes or counts. The rise in DDR4 spot prices should be considered separate from any recovery in demand across the DRAM market as a whole.
| Spot market item | Observation date | Average price | Week over week | Trading conditions |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| DDR4 1Gx8 3200MT/s | Sept. 29 | $46.32 | Up 0.93% | Buyers cautious; trading sluggish |
| 512Gb TLC NAND wafer | Sept. 28 | $19.396 | Down 2.45% | Sellers agreed to lower prices, but buying interest weak |
The source is TrendForce's weekly update dated September 30. Both are benchmarks in the components market, and the observation dates and products differ.
"1Gx8" for DDR4 refers to the memory chip's configuration, and "512Gb" for NAND indicates the chip's storage density. Neither represents the capacity of finished memory modules or SSDs, or their retail prices.
In NAND, buyers kept waiting even when sellers lowered their asking prices to encourage sales. There has been no notable improvement in demand for consumer products, and price cuts have not led to more orders.
The price decline reflects weak appetite for buying additional NAND at the distribution stage.
NAND price trends differ sharply by use
The fourth-quarter outlook released the same day forecasts that general DRAM contract prices will rise 10–15% quarter over quarter and NAND overall will rise 15–20%.
These are contract prices for the October–December quarter, which differ in nature from end-of-September spot prices. Nor does the forecast mean increases have already been finalized.
Looking at NAND in more detail, the outlook varies by product. Price increases for enterprise SSDs are expected to accelerate, while those for PC SSDs are expected to be contained and NAND wafers are expected to see only a small rise.
| Product category | Q4 price outlook | Buyer and supply-side conditions |
|---|---|---|
| Enterprise SSDs | Increases accelerate | Strong purchasing for AI inference; most additional supply already secured |
| PC SSDs | Limited increase | PC makers are drawing on inventory and holding down purchase volumes and installed capacity |
| NAND wafers | Small increase | Supply is limited, but module makers' buying appetite is weak |
This table organizes TrendForce's September 30 product-by-product Q4 contract price outlook by direction of price movement.
It does not show specific rates of increase for each product, and the 15–20% increase forecast for NAND overall cannot be applied as is to each individual product. It also differs in target and period from the decline in the 512Gb TLC wafer spot price as of September 28.
In enterprise SSDs, investment by cloud providers in AI inference infrastructure is pushing up demand.
TrendForce forecasts that enterprise SSD bit demand will grow by more than 80% year over year in 2026. "Bit demand" here refers to the volume of demand measured by storage capacity. It does not mean that SSD unit shipments or revenue have grown by more than 80%.
TrendForce cites the growth in real-time search and caching uses accompanying wider adoption of AI agents, as well as expanding use of QLC NAND in vector databases, as factors behind the demand increase.
Manufacturers are also expanding QLC production capacity and the supply of high-capacity SSDs, but most of the additional output has already been secured by customers, leaving limited volume for other customers to buy freely.
In other words, even if production rises, the inventory freely available on the market does not necessarily grow by the same amount.
PC SSDs present a very different picture.
PC makers have little need to hurry to procure new components. According to TrendForce, manufacturers are expected to be able to keep shipping by using finished goods and channel inventory built up in the first half, replenishing only the materials they lack.
To cut costs, some mainstream PCs are also being fitted with less SSD capacity. Because PC makers are reducing not only the number of SSDs they buy but also the capacity per unit, buyers tend to have a relatively stronger hand in price negotiations with SSD makers.
Module makers that buy NAND wafers face their own circumstances.
With component prices remaining high, it is hard to pass those increases on to product prices in the retail market, so manufacturers are cautious about purchasing.
Meanwhile, NAND makers are allocating production capacity with an emphasis on profitability, so the volume of wafers supplied to the market is itself limited.
In other words, weak demand makes sharp price increases unlikely, but supply is not abundant either. That is TrendForce's fourth-quarter outlook.
Why memory prices are slow to fall even when PC demand is weak
For PC DRAM, unlike SSDs, TrendForce forecasts that manufacturers will continue to purchase actively.
What PC makers are wary of is not only current sales. Whether they can secure enough DRAM for 2027 is also a concern.
That is because if memory makers shift production capacity toward server products, future supply of PC DRAM could shrink.
For 2026, volumes contracted with PC makers and module makers are being supplied each quarter, but uncertainty remains about supply beyond that, according to TrendForce.
Even among PC components, buyers of DRAM are trying to secure supply early out of concern about future shortages, while in SSDs they are using existing inventory and also reducing installed capacity.
For that reason, "whether PCs are selling" alone cannot explain memory component prices or purchasing trends.
In servers, too, simply increasing production does not meet demand.
According to TrendForce, cloud providers and server makers are increasing purchases of RDIMMs for general-purpose servers as CPU supply improves.
However, even if memory makers try to raise the share of low-capacity RDIMM production, constraints such as the supply of peripheral components and the throughput of packaging and testing processes get in the way.
DRAM manufacturing processes also cannot be switched freely in a short time to match demand.
What matters is not just total DRAM output, but whether the market can be supplied with enough of the types of products it needs.
The manufacturers' own explanations also confirm a priority on server products.
In its second-quarter 2026 results announced on July 30, Samsung said it addressed AI demand, centered on server products, within limited production capacity.
For the second half, it expects demand to soften in parts of PCs and mobile, but said that growing demand for server DRAM, enterprise SSDs and HBM will keep supply constrained.
Of course, this is an explanation of Samsung's memory business as a whole and does not directly explain why DDR4 spot prices rose at the end of September.
Still, it shows why weaker demand for consumer products does not necessarily leave the entire memory market oversupplied at once.
Depending on which products manufacturers direct their limited production capacity toward, the volumes buyers can secure and their bargaining power in each market change.
After the holidays, watch trading volumes as well as prices
The rise in DDR4 spot prices and the fall in NAND wafer prices alone cannot tell us when memory and SSDs sold in stores will become cheaper.
What has been presented is only spot prices in the components market and a forecast of future contract prices. It does not include finished-goods channel inventory or movements in retail prices.
Going forward, attention will be on whether actual trading volumes for the same specifications increase once the holiday effect fades.
In DDR4, will trading volume rise along with prices? In NAND, will module makers' orders increase in response to sellers' price cuts?
If both prices and volumes begin to move, it will be easier to judge whether this is merely a temporary holiday lull or whether the market itself is starting to change.
For contract prices, too, it will be necessary to look at actual negotiation outcomes by use.
TrendForce also notes that some server DRAM may be priced under long-term supply agreements, which could mean smaller increases than the market average.
By checking which products and customers actually see price hikes, together with how shipment volumes and inventories change, we will be able to see how far the supply tightness in enterprise products spills over into PC memory procurement and pricing.