The NAND flash memory market is experiencing a new round of severe supply-demand imbalance. Driven by the explosive demand for AI infrastructure construction and limited supply expansion, the price of flash memory continues to rise sharply, and the market landscape is accelerating its reshaping.
According to the latest survey by TrendForce, the revenue of the top five global NAND flash memory brands is expected to increase significantly by 23.8% quarter-on-quarter in the fourth quarter of 2025, reaching USD 21.17 billion. Looking ahead to the first quarter of 2026, TrendForce has raised its overall NAND flash memory price forecast to an increase of 85% to 90% quarter-on-quarter, with revenue levels expected to grow again.
The core driving force behind the supply-demand imbalance comes from North American cloud service providers (CSPs) massively deploying AI server infrastructure, leading to an explosive growth in enterprise SSD demand.
At the same time, the severe shortage of HDDs and long delivery times have exacerbated the order transfer effect, further intensifying the NAND flash memory shortage and driving up prices, with major manufacturers strongly willing to raise prices.
<h2>Revenue of the Five Major Manufacturers Increases Across the Board, with SK Group Leading the Growth</h2>
In the fourth quarter of 2025, major NAND flash memory suppliers generally recorded strong revenue growth, but performances varied significantly among them.
Samsung ranked first with a revenue of USD 6.6 billion, a quarter-on-quarter increase of 10%, but its market share fell to 28%. TrendForce pointed out that although the average selling price of Samsung products has significantly increased, the shipment volume decreased quarter-on-quarter due to the high base period of the previous quarter and process conversion losses, dragging down overall performance.
SK Group led the industry with a quarter-on-quarter growth rate of 47.8%, achieving revenue of USD 5.21 billion and maintaining its second place with a market share of 22.1%. Its shipment growth momentum mainly comes from the mobile NAND flash memory and enterprise SSD product lines.
Kioxia reported revenue of USD 3.31 billion, a quarter-on-quarter increase of 16.5%, with both revenue and shipment volume reaching a quarterly record high. Micron's revenue increased by 24.8% quarter-on-quarter to nearly USD 3.03 billion, ranking fourth. The company continues to increase QLC output and expand the supply of products using ninth-generation NAND flash memory technology, which will help grow bit output in 2026. SanDisk reported revenue of nearly USD 3.03 billion, a quarter-on-quarter increase of 31.1%, ranking fifth. Benefiting from the overall NAND supply shortage, the company actively expanded its previously weaker server sector, making significant progress in its data center business.
<h2>Limited Capacity Expansion Combined with Explosive AI Demand, High Price Trends Expected to Continue Throughout the Year</h2>
TrendForce pointed out that in 2026, under the foreseeable limited expansion of NAND flash memory capacity and the continued explosive demand for AI, prices will remain high.
From the supply side, major manufacturers have not chosen to significantly expand production capacity but are accelerating technological iterations and shifting their product focus to large-capacity QLC enterprise SSDs such as 122TB and 245TB to meet the demand for large capacity and high transmission speeds from generative AI. Capacity resources continue to tilt towards the server side, resulting in a significant squeeze on the supply of consumer products
This structural change means that the supply and demand differentiation between the enterprise market and the consumer market will further deepen. For downstream manufacturers relying on consumer-grade NAND products, supply tightness and price pressure may continue; while suppliers deeply engaged in enterprise-grade SSD and AI storage solutions are expected to continue benefiting in this round of price increase cycle.
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The NAND flash memory market is experiencing a supply-demand imbalance, with prices expected to rise by 85% to 90% in the first quarter of 2026. The main driving factor is the large-scale construction of AI servers by North American cloud service providers, leading to a surge in enterprise SSD demand. At the same time, the shortage of HDDs has exacerbated the supply tightness of NAND flash memory. In the fourth quarter of 2025, the revenues of the world's top five NAND flash manufacturers generally increased, with SK Group leading with a quarterly growth rate of 47.8%, while Samsung's revenue was high but its market share declined

- The NAND flash market is experiencing a significant supply-demand imbalance driven by increased AI infrastructure demand and limited supply expansion, leading to rising flash prices.  
- TrendForce reports that the top five global NAND manufacturers saw a revenue increase of 23.8% in Q4 2025, projecting an 85% to 90% price rise in Q1 2026 amid robust enterprise SSD demand due to AI server deployments.  
- The ongoing tight supply and high prices are expected to persist throughout the year, with a deeper differentiation in supply-demand dynamics between the enterprise and consumer markets.

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Severe supply and demand imbalance, Nand flash memory is expected to increase in price by 90% in the first quarter