An increase of 80%. Why RAM is getting more expensive in Ukraine and when to expect a price drop

Over the past month, one of the most popular RAM models in Ukraine has risen in price by 80%. Moreover, a 30% increase occurred in just nine days in December. Further price increases are expected for all RAM models, as well as other devices.LIGA.net figured out how critical the situation is, why it happened, and when prices will fall.How the memory market was moving towards the crisisLet's go back a few years. During the covid boom, users were buying smartphones and laptops in droves. At the beginning of 2023, when the boom ended, memory manufacturers found themselves with a pile of unsold chips. To "dump" the leftovers, they lowered prices. As a result, Samsung, according to TechHQposted its lowest quarterly profit in 14 years.REFERENCESamsung is one of the three companies that actually control the RAM market.Two others: SK Hynix and Micron. All three produce the main types of chips, which are then used in modules of different brands:DRAM is a common RAM for PCs, laptops, smartphones, and servers. It has its own generations: DDR3 → DDR4 → DDR5.HBM is a high-speed memory used by GPUs and AI accelerators.NAND – memory for data storage (SSD, flash drives, built-in storage of a smartphone).Although the products are different, the fabs for DRAM, HBM, and NAND are the same, so the growth in demand for one type directly affects the others.At the end of 2023 trendForce analysts have recorded the first increase in DRAM prices. The movement was modest (3-8%), so 2024 was a year of "cautious optimism." Analysts expected memory to rise slowly, but within the normal cycle. Some forecasts even said that DRAM may become cheaper in 2025.But these forecasts did not take into account one key factor: AI and data centers have already begun to pull the wool over their eyes.Operational manufacturers reported to investorsthat are expanding the production of HBM memory for AI accelerators. In addition to growing demand, it also brought more profit: the margin on HBM can be up to 60%, and for DRAM – about 40%.At the same time, HBM is more complex and slower in production. One HBM stack consumes as much production resources as dozens of conventional DRAM chips. Thus, in 2025, DRAM stocks fell to ~8 weeks, down from 31 weeks in early 2023. Meanwhile, the AI industry has entered into the phase of "great appetite"data centers were expanding, GPUs were being launched in hundreds of thousands, and AI models were getting bigger and needed more and more memory.As a result, in the summer and fall of 2025, three important processes converged simultaneously:The demand for HBM has become uncontrollable.The production of conventional DRAM has systematically decreased.DRAM stocks have fallen to critically low levels.After that, what is inevitable in any scarce segment happened: prices exploded. So, at the end of 2025, the final phase of the crisis came.What consequences we can already seeIn 2016-2018 the market for smartphones had already been "shaking": first, a shortage due to the rapid growth in demand for smartphones, then growth, high prices, oversaturation, and a recession. It was a classic "supercycle".But now the demand is coming not from mass consumers but from AI giants and cloud providers that build GPU farms and buy HBM/server DRAM under long contracts. In other words, HBM "steals" resources from regular DRAM, and companies steal from ordinary users.In addition, prices are soaring too fast: according to TrendForcedRAM spot prices almost tripled over the year. And in November 2025, Samsung raised prices for certain DDR5 chips up to +60% compared to September. Bernstein analysts estimate that the contract prices for standard DRAM in the fourth quarter of this year increased by about 30% compared to the previous quarter.In the comments LIGA.net comfy, a Ukrainian chain of home appliances and electronics stores, notes that it began to record a gradual increase in prices for DDR5 RAM and SSD drives at the end of October.In December, there was a significant jump in prices, which almost doubled the price of DDR5 memory in two months. The market has risen quite rapidly, and buyers have not really had time to change their behavior in response: we have not seen either pent-up demand or a rush to buy RAM," Comfy's press service reports.For example, here's how the price of Kingston FURY 32 GB (2x16GB) DDR5, one of the most popular RAM models on the price comparison site, has been rising:uAH 6,110 – average price as of October 17 877 UAH – November 1and already UAH 11,197 as of December 1There have already been several price hikes in December, and at the time of this writing, the price is 14,120 UAH. This is about +30% since the beginning of December and +80% since the beginning of November. There has also been a sharp increase in demand for RAM over the past month.According to Comfy's observations, users have increased their interest in off-the-shelf PCs, which are still sold at transitional prices and have not yet risen in price in proportion to the cost of the package: the increase over the past week of 2025 compared to the same week in 2024 is 24%; the increase over Monday of this week compared to the same Monday in 2024 is 46%.But in general, devices that run on RAM are already getting more expensive and "thin", for example, the price of the Raspberry Pi 5 16GB has increased from $120 to $145. To stay in the budget segment, the company launches a new 1GB version of Pi 5 for $45.According to The Verge, some flagship smartphones have already risen in price by about $40 just because of RAM, while the average price increase in 2026 may be +$9. А Tom's Hardware reportsreports that Dell and Lenovo are preparing to raise prices for PCs and servers by up to 15%.How events will developManufacturers are deliberately not in a hurry to expand DRAM production. After the painful collapse of 2022-2023, they are afraid to invest again and then drown in surplus. Analysts writethe company says that memory may remain expensive until 2027 precisely because of this "caution" on the part of manufacturers. Under these conditions, 2026 is not a junction, but only the middle of the cycle.Pros trendForce forecastsin 2026, contract prices for DRAM and NAND will continue to rise, and the total cost of goods (BOM) of devices will increase by another 5-7%+ compared to 2025. Server RAM prices have already increased by +50% in 2025, and, according to forecastswill be twice as expensive by the end of 2026. It is likely that cloud providers and AI services will pass these costs on to customers, so prices for their services will also rise, both for users and businesses.Gartner predictsthat prices for low-power DRAM – less power-consuming memory – may decline by about 13% by the third quarter of 2026, but the overall trend is still upward.LP modules are designed for smartphones and tablets, but prices are forcing some companies to use them for servers as well. Gartner predicts that by 2029, more than 10% of all memory in servers will be low-power, although previously it was almost zero.SK Hynix also expectsthat the memory shortage may last until the end of 2027. However, there are more optimistic scenarios if the AI market cools down a bit (there will be fewer panic purchases, and optimizations in architecture will reduce memory appetite per user). In this case, the situation will start to improve by the end of 2026.Read alsoAre visual novels just comics? 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