“Price Hikes Across the Board” – Storage Market Forecasts Point to a Full-Scale Q4 Surge
Recovery Signals Strengthen as Analog Device Demand Rebounds Globally
Since September 2025, the storage market has been flooded with price hike announcements, driving a widespread wave of increases. Following SanDisk’s move to raise prices by 10% across all channels and consumer product lines, a series of similar actions from other major suppliers quickly followed.
In mid-September, MICRON announced the immediate suspension of all DRAM and NAND FLASH quotations, cancelling all contract pricing. Shortly thereafter, MICRON officially notified distributors of sweeping price increases in the range of 20% to 30% across product lines. By late September, SAMSUNG joined the momentum, informing customers of 15% to 30% price hikes on DRAM products, including LPDDR4X and LPDDR5/5X, alongside 5% to 10% increases in NAND FLASH. WESTDATA also entered the fray, notifying customers of a gradual rise in prices across its entire HDD portfolio, effective immediately.
From the dramatic surge in DDR4 prices earlier this year to the recent strength in NAND FLASH, the underlying drivers remain the same: the explosive growth of AI inference workloads and the exponential expansion of cloud computing data demand. Meanwhile, storage giants continue to fine-tune their strategies around technology upgrades, capacity allocation, and resource planning—all firmly anchored in profit optimization.
For downstream suppliers and end-users alike, the message is clear: brace for volatility. With profit-driven market dynamics and surging demand reshaping the landscape, adaptability and contingency planning are now critical to navigating this fast-changing environment.
The cyclical nature of the industry is evident, as it is significantly influenced by downstream inventory fluctuations, end-market demand, and macroeconomic conditions. From a cyclical perspective, the industry entered a downturn beginning in Q4 2022, following the period of high prosperity in 2021–2022 that drove excessive stockpiling and elevated channel inventories. This was most clearly reflected in the automotive end-market’s weak demand, alongside multiple consecutive quarters of revenue decline and rising inventory levels for leading players such as ADI and TI.
Currently, the signs of recovery are becoming increasingly clear. For example, both ADI and TI are nearing the end of their inventory digestion, with demand beginning to rebound. From Q1 2025, the industry has entered an upward cycle. Global analog leader TI reported its first year-over-year revenue growth in eight quarters in Q1 2025, while ADI saw growth in Q2 2025 and then a substantial 25% year-over-year revenue increase in Q3 2025.
The semiconductor industry is now progressing into its next major growth cycle following the 5C era of personal PCs and smartphones. Continuous innovation in AI terminals, the emergence of humanoid robots moving from “zero to one,” and the advancement of automotive intelligence are reshaping demand, while the rise of data centers continues to drive requirements for high-performance analog chips. This growth trajectory is elevating the value of power management and signal chain products, providing long-term momentum for the analog chip industry. The industry’s full-scale recovery is no longer a forecast—it is already underway.
Hot Topics: The recovery of industrial and communication demand is driving a new growth cycle in the analog semiconductor industry, while the AI market remains the core growth driver for major chipmakers.
ALTERA Cyclone series and MAX series spot-market demand and prices are rising simultaneously
XILINX high-end series lead times are being extended, and certain models in the current spot market have supply disputes. This month’s demand is leaning toward mid- and low-end series such as XC3S/XC95 FPGA and CPLD chips, as well as configuration chips such as XCF.
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