New report claims Samsung, SK Hynix and Sandisk are all planning to double the price of NAND memory chips this year
If you were hoping that, somehow, this whole AI bubble thing would quietly go away and PC component prices would return to normal, well, there's bad news. A new report says that three of the biggest players in NAND chips, the flash memory that goes into PC SSDs, are all planning on doubling their prices.
Digitimes claims that Samsung is planning on more than doubling the price of its NAND chips in the first quarter of this year, "amid tightening supply and surging demand driven by the expansion of artificial intelligence applications."
The site further says that, "SK Hynix has implemented NAND price increases of a similar magnitude, while Sandisk has previously been reported to be planning a 100% NAND price hike in 2026."
That means three of the biggest players in NAND chips for SSDs all plan to double their prices, or thereabouts.
Perhaps unsurprisingly, Digitimes also notes that Samsung recently reported very strong financial results, with revenues up by over 22% to roughly $65 billion for the final quarter of 2025. Samsung's profits for the same period doubled to a little under $14 billion. As they say, nice work if you can get it.
Exactly how much impact this will all make on the actual price of SSDs is tricky to say. Looking at the current prices of SSDs, you could argue that prices have already doubled or more of late.
To take just one example, the WD BLACK SN850X 2TB was available on Amazon for around $150 last summer. By the end of last year, it was up to well over $250. Right now? It's available for $399, which Amazon rather laughably indicates is at a 31% discount on a purported list price of $574.99
Anyway, the question is, have the increases Digitimes is referring to here already been priced into the likes of that WD drive on Amazon? You really have to hope so. Because if they haven't, the price of SSDs in the coming months doesn't bear thinking about.
Personally, I'd guestimate that at least some of the mooted NAND chip increases probably are priced in, and we're not about to see a WD BLACK SN850X 2TB priced up at $800. But the fact that you can't be truly confident that it won't happen says everything about our current predicament. It ain't good, peeps.