One price per day. "Recently, during a visit to the Huaqiangbei market in Shenzhen, Guangdong, several memory dealers lamented that the global memory market has experienced a rare price increase since September this year. According to data released by third-party research firm Jibang Consulting (Shenzhen) Co., Ltd., the spot prices of mainstream memory models have surged 307% since early September compared to the previous quarter. From the constantly rising price lists in the hands of distributors to the cost pressures that consumer electronics companies such as Xiaomi and HP have to face, the rise in memory prices is being transmitted layer by layer, bringing certain impacts to the industry. Why is there a rapid increase in memory prices? What opportunities and challenges does this fluctuation bring to the upstream and downstream of the industrial chain? The industry's prosperity is expected to continue. The price of this memory module was over 100 yuan in early September, and now the price has increased more than three times. I have never seen such a rapid increase before. ”Ms. Chen, a storage product distributor on the first floor of SEG Communication in Huaqiangbei Market, pointed to a sample memory module placed in the counter and told reporters. During the interview with the reporter, faced with such a huge increase in such a short period of time, not only did the dealer exclaim that they had never seen it before, but many memory enterprise leaders and industry analysts who have been in the industry for many years also claimed that it was the first time. Ni Huangzhong, Chairman of Shenzhen Shichuang Electronic Co., Ltd., said that this is the first time he has encountered such a situation in his more than 10 years of practice. Wu Yating, Senior Vice President of Research at Jibang Consulting, also stated that she has been researching the storage industry for about 20 years and has never seen such a significant price increase. The current round of price increases for storage devices is characterized by fast speed, large magnitude, and involvement of multiple models. Wu Yating analyzed that from the demand side, it is mainly due to the strong demand for storage used by cloud service providers for ordinary servers and artificial intelligence servers. Currently, in addition to HBM (High Bandwidth Memory), there are also various types of storage products being snapped up. From the supply side, as it takes at least 2 years from the announcement of the construction of the new factory to its completion, it is difficult to achieve a significant increase in production capacity in the short term even if manufacturers increase their investment in the future. Memory is known as the "global semiconductor industry barometer" and occupies an important share in the semiconductor market. Due to the highly concentrated competitive landscape in the industry, its cyclical fluctuations are greater than those of the entire semiconductor industry. Looking back at history, every major cycle of memory is closely related to technological innovation. The core reason for this upward cycle is the exponential increase in the total amount of data brought about by the iteration of artificial intelligence technology, which has given rise to a massive 'storage force demand'. ”Guo Tao, Deputy Director of the China E-commerce Expert Service Center, analyzed that especially in the current development of artificial intelligence models from the training stage to the inference stage, both artificial intelligence servers and end products have put forward higher requirements for storage, making this cycle different from the past. It is reported that DRAM (Dynamic Random Access Memory) and NAND Flash (Flash Memory) are the two main types of memory products in modern electronic systems. Taking a typical artificial intelligence server as an example, its DRAM demand is about 8 times that of a regular server, and its NAND Flash demand is about 3 times that of a regular server. According to a research report by Guojin Securities Co., Ltd., since 2000, the global storage market has gone through multiple cycles, with each complete cycle lasting approximately 3 to 5 years. With the increasing demand driven by artificial intelligence, the industry is currently at the starting point of a new round of storage cycle. Reporters have found that as of now, multiple institutions such as China Merchants Securities Co., Ltd., Huaxin Securities Co., Ltd., and Huatai Securities Co., Ltd. have collectively referred to it as the "super cycle" of the memory industry in their recent research reports. The industry generally believes that the prosperity of the memory industry is expected to continue into next year and possibly into 2027 or even longer. The differentiation of upstream and downstream industries and the impact of rising storage prices on different links in the industrial chain are different. Upstream equipment companies have seen an increase in orders, while midstream manufacturing companies have seen an increase in profits. However, downstream cloud service providers are actively rushing to purchase storage and raising prices, resulting in significant cost pressures for terminal enterprises such as mobile phones and computers. Specifically, upstream enterprises in the industrial chain are the first to benefit. The relevant person in charge of Northern Huachuang Technology Group Co., Ltd., a leading semiconductor equipment enterprise, recently stated that the company's storage equipment and mature process equipment orders have maintained a good trend, and the products have been widely used in the production lines of mainstream chip manufacturers in China. The relevant person in charge of SMIC, a leading wafer foundry enterprise, revealed in an institutional survey that the company's production capacity utilization rate reached 95.8% in the third quarter, and the shipment volume continued to increase. The production line is currently in a state of supply shortage. For midstream enterprises in the industrial chain, the increase in product prices directly drives the growth of operating income and profits. For example, Shenzhen Baiwei Storage Technology Co., Ltd. achieved a revenue of 2.663 billion yuan in the third quarter of 2025, a year-on-year increase of 68.06%; Realize a net profit of 256 million yuan attributable to shareholders of the listed company. Shenzhen Jiangbolong Electronics Co., Ltd. achieved a revenue of 6.539 billion yuan in the third quarter, a year-on-year increase of 54.60% and a month on month increase of 10.10%; Realize a net profit of 698 million yuan attributable to shareholders of the listed company. For downstream consumer electronics manufacturers such as smartphones and computers in the industry chain, the increase in storage prices will have a significant impact. Memory accounts for 10% to 20% of the hardware cost of mainstream mobile phones and computers. The rise in memory prices has led to an increase in overall machine costs, and it is inevitable that consumer electronic products such as mobile phones and computers will increase in price. For consumers, purchasing electronic products next year may face the choice of price increases or price reductions, "said Ding Zhenyu, senior investment advisor at Shaanxi Jufeng Investment Information Co., Ltd. Lu Weibing, partner and president of Xiaomi Group, responded at the third quarter performance media conference call that the current rise in memory prices is a long-term behavior. Faced with this trend, Xiaomi has already laid out in advance and signed supply agreements with partners for the whole year of 2026 to ensure that the supply throughout the year is not affected. In the future, cost pressures may be smoothed out through price increases and product structure upgrades, "said Lu Weibing. Large manufacturers can still cope with cost pressures through various strategies such as signing long-term agreements with upstream suppliers to lock in prices, transmitting downward prices, and adjusting product structures, while small manufacturers with weaker bargaining power face severe challenges. Especially in the low-end mobile phone market, product profits are already low, and coupled with the higher cost proportion of storage in low-end phones, price increases will further squeeze their profit margins, "said Ding Zhenyu. Domestication accelerates and seizes opportunities. Data storage capability, together with computing power, has become the "dual engine" for releasing data value. At present, significant achievements have been made in China's efforts to build capacity. According to Wang Zhiqin, Vice President of the China Academy of Information and Communications Technology, as of the end of 2024, the total scale of storage capacity in China has reached 1580 exabytes, of which advanced storage accounts for 28%. The "Action Plan for High Quality Development of Computing Infrastructure" issued by six departments including the Ministry of Industry and Information Technology clearly states that computing power is a new type of productivity that integrates information computing power, network transportation power, and data storage power. The Action Plan also proposes to encourage storage product manufacturing enterprises to continuously improve their independent research and development and manufacturing capabilities of key storage components, and to create an industrial ecosystem where storage media, storage chips, storage systems, and storage applications promote and collaborate with each other. In recent years, Chinese enterprises have continuously made breakthroughs in key links of the memory industry chain, promoting the continuous improvement of localization rate. In the field of storage wafers, domestic semiconductor storage wafer enterprises represented by Changjiang Storage and Changxin Storage have developed rapidly, achieving technological breakthroughs and rapidly increasing market share in domestic storage wafers. In the field of equipment, North Huachuang can provide core equipment such as etching, thin film deposition, heat treatment, wet process, coating and development, ion implantation, etc., covering mainstream storage types. Zhongwei Semiconductor Equipment (Shanghai) Co., Ltd. has achieved large-scale production of various key etching and thin film processes in advanced logic and memory device manufacturing, significantly increasing the shipment volume of high-end products. In the field of memory products, a group of companies such as Baiwei Storage and Jiangbolong have achieved differentiated competition through self-developed main control chips and improved advanced packaging and testing capabilities, building a complete product layout and providing globally leading storage solutions for artificial intelligence smartphones, artificial intelligence personal computers, artificial intelligence glasses, embodied intelligence, etc. Faced with the "super cycle", relevant listed companies are seizing the industry's upward dividends, intensifying research and development innovation, product iteration, and capacity layout, which will further accelerate the localization process. Jiangbolong Company recently announced that it plans to raise no more than 3.7 billion yuan for high-end memory research and industrialization projects in the field of artificial intelligence, semiconductor storage control chip series research and development projects, semiconductor storage high-end packaging and testing construction projects, and supplementary working capital. Previously, Shenzhen Demingli Technology Co., Ltd. announced that it plans to raise no more than 3.2 billion yuan for solid-state drive expansion projects, memory product expansion projects, Demingli intelligent storage management and R&D headquarters base projects, and to supplement working capital. Experts say that currently, under the dual background of the "super cycle" of storage and the acceleration of localization, challenges and opportunities coexist. In the short term, price fluctuations and industrial chain adjustments will continue; In the long run, enterprises that master core high-end technologies will build deep barriers, and the entire industry will also move towards a new stage of development in the interweaving of "high growth" and "strong cycles". (New Society)