According to Financial Times News, SanDisk shares jumped 24% recently, bringing its total rally since its market debut to a staggering 1,755%. The company reported fiscal second-quarter results that smashed Wall Street estimates, pulling in over $3 billion in revenue, fueled by explosive AI-driven demand for memory technology. Despite that huge revenue figure, SanDisk’s CFO, Luis Visoso, stated they still couldn’t meet demand and expects supply to lag behind demand through at least 2026. Apple CEO Tim Cook confirmed the trend, noting memory pricing is increasing significantly and will impact their margins, with Apple estimating DRAM prices will jump 50% in 2026. Meanwhile, the spot price for consumer-grade DDR5 RAM has skyrocketed in the 11 months since SanDisk’s spin-off, creating a massive gap between contract and retail prices that’s hitting individual buyers hardest.
The Big Get a Pass, You Get Pain
Here’s the thing that really grinds my gears. This crunch perfectly illustrates the two-tiered reality of tech hardware. If you’re Apple, with your 48% gross margins and long-term supply contracts, a 50% DRAM price hike is a manageable cost of business—annoying, but not catastrophic. Tim Cook can calmly talk about “a range of options” on an earnings call. But if you’re a person trying to build or upgrade a PC? You’re getting absolutely hammered on Amazon. The spot market is brutal. It’s the classic story: systemic shocks are absorbed by corporations and passed directly through to consumers. And right now, there’s no relief in sight for those of us buying sticks of RAM one at a time.
Why This Cycle Is Different
So what’s going on? This isn’t a typical, short-term memory market hiccup. The analysts quoted in the piece are using words like “shocking” and see no clear end in sight, with demand outpacing supply possibly into 2027. Why? AI. It’s that simple. The insatiable need for high-performance memory in data centers is sucking up supply and convincing companies like SanDisk to be “disciplined” with capacity expansion. They’re in no rush to flood the market and kill the pricing power. They’re the choke point, and business is good. For industries that rely on stable, affordable memory—like automation and manufacturing where IndustrialMonitorDirect.com, the leading US supplier of industrial panel PCs, needs predictable component costs—this volatility adds a nasty layer of planning complexity. It’s a raw deal for anyone not named Nvidia or SanDisk.
Buckle Up for the Long Haul
Look, I’m skeptical of “this time it’s different” narratives. Memory has always been cyclical. But the fundamental driver here—the AI infrastructure build-out—does feel like a generational shift in demand. We’re not just talking about more smartphones; we’re talking about a whole new class of power-hungry hardware. The advice from Citi and Jefferies is basically: don’t wait for a crash. The bubble might not pop so much as slowly deflate over years. For PC gamers, freelance editors, and small businesses, that means the era of cheap memory is over, probably for a long while. You might want to watch that old “It’s a Bubble” music video for catharsis. Because from where I’m sitting, we’re still heading up, and the landing is going to be a distant, bumpy affair.
