With the global trend of building artificial intelligence (AI) infrastructure, sales of major NAND flash makers such as Samsung Electronics and SK hynix have surged. In particular, sales at SK hynix and Solidigm rose by nearly 50% from the previous quarter.

According to market research firm TrendForce on the 3rd, fourth-quarter sales last year for the top five companies in the global NAND flash market were $21.17 billion, up 23.8% from the previous quarter.

With global artificial intelligence (AI) fever driving a surge in demand for memory semiconductors and expectations that prices of key IT devices such as smartphones and PCs will rise across the board, an employee inspects laptops at a mart in Seoul on the 25th. On the 11th, according to the industry, as demand for High Bandwidth Memory (HBM) used in AI servers soars, production of low-cost DRAM is being pushed down the priority list. Market research firm Omdia analyzes that prices of mobile DRAM (LPDDR) products have risen more than 70% compared with early last year, while smartphone NAND flash prices have also jumped about 100%. /Courtesy of Yonhap News

In particular, growth at SK hynix and Solidigm (the NAND flash subsidiary of SK hynix) was steep.

In the fourth quarter last year, the two companies' combined sales were $5.2115 billion, up 47.8% from the previous quarter. Their market share was 22.1%, ranking second after Samsung Electronics (28%).

During the same period, Samsung Electronics' NAND flash sales rose 10% from the previous quarter to $6.6 billion. Its market share was 28%, down from 32.3% in the previous quarter.

TrendForce said, "Although Samsung Electronics' average selling price (ASP) for NAND flash increased significantly, bit shipments fell from the previous quarter due to base effects and process transition losses."

Kioxia posted sales of $3.311 billion, up 16.5% from the previous quarter. Its market share in the fourth quarter last year was 14.1%.

Micron's NAND flash sales were $3.025 billion, up 24.8% from the previous quarter. Its market share was 12.8%.

During the same period, SanDisk's sales were also $3.025 billion, up 31.1% from the previous quarter. With a 12.8% market share, it tied with Micron for fourth place.

TrendForce analyzed, "The main growth driver in the NAND flash market was explosive demand for enterprise SSDs stemming from large-scale AI server deployments by North American cloud service providers (CSPs)."

It added, "With severe hard disk drive (HDD) shortages and extended lead times, orders rapidly shifted to NAND, tightening supply further," and noted, "This imbalance worsened NAND shortages and pushed prices higher, directly increasing supplier revenue."

TrendForce forecast that overall NAND flash prices in the first quarter this year will soar 85–90% from the previous quarter. With NAND production capacity expansion limited in the short term and AI demand surging, it expects strong upward price momentum to persist throughout the year.

In addition, as major suppliers prioritize production capacity for server products—high-capacity quad-level cell (QLC) enterprise SSDs such as 122-terabyte (TB) and 245TB models—supply for consumer products is expected to tighten further.

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