| I ChatGPT'd your claim, from recent years it seems correct. Here's some basic analysis it did (AI, so take with grain of salt): https://shottr.cc/s/2zv5/SCR-20251127-fm6p.png 2016–2018 price spike DRAM prices nearly tripled. Driven by smartphone demand + server build-out + constrained supply expansion. Resulted in the 2018 antitrust lawsuit accusing Samsung, Micron, SK hynix of coordinated output limits. 2019 oversupply crash After the spike, memory makers over-invested capacity. Demand softened; inventories built up. Prices fell sharply — ~35–40% decline. 2020 mild recovery COVID WFH / remote boom → PC sales up → DRAM demand rose slightly. Prices recovered modestly. 2021 rebound Data-center and cloud expansion returned. DDR5 ramping begins. Market in recovery — but not frothy. 2022–2023 bottom Smartphone shipments declined globally. PC demand dropped post-COVID. OEMs had too much inventory → massive price declines. Some DRAM sold below production cost. 2024–2025 AI/HBM super-cycle AI training systems (NVIDIA, AMD, etc.) require large HBM arrays. Fab capacity reallocated from commodity DRAM → HBM. AI hyperscalers (OpenAI, Microsoft, Meta, Tesla) created enormous DRAM draw. Commodity DRAM restricted → price spike ≥170% YoY. |
