Samsung: RAM chip shortage to worsen in 2027, last until 2028

The ongoing shortage of RAM chips won’t just persist into next year — it will likely intensify in 2027, with tight supply conditions lasting until at least 2028, Samsung said. The company, which manufactures and supplies roughly a third of the world’s memory chips, made the forecast during its Q2 earnings call.

Samsung said frontier AI labs, desperate to lock in access to memory infrastructure, have been “sharing their medium- to long-term demand forecasts” directly with the company to secure future supply. That demand lets Samsung prioritize customers willing to sign long-term contracts, giving it multi-year visibility that allows it to install equipment and ramp up production without worrying that demand will dry up — helping the company sidestep the memory industry’s historical boom-and-bust cycles.

The AI-driven shortage has also pushed up chip prices in recent months, cutting both ways for Samsung. Sales at its semiconductor unit hit an all-time high in Q2, but profitability in its smartphone and TV divisions shrank, as pricier chips drove up component costs. Samsung has already started passing some of those costs on to consumers by raising the prices of its Galaxy smartphones and tablets — a move that has, in turn, dropped demand for those devices.

The shortage, informally dubbed “the RAMaggedon,” has forced Apple, Samsung’s archrival, to raise the prices of its MacBooks, Macs, and iPads last month. On its latest earnings call, Apple warned that revenue growth for the upcoming quarter is projected to slow to between 9% and 11% year-over-year, down from its recent 16% quarterly growth rate.

Nvidia, meanwhile, is expected to raise its consumer graphics card prices by 20% to 30%, a move that may further drive up prices for gaming devices, desktop computers, consoles, and laptops. As memory manufacturers shift production capacity toward AI data centers and away from consumer electronics, consumers are increasingly facing a new reality: higher prices across nearly every device category that depends on RAM chips.

Why it matters

With Samsung projecting tight memory supply through 2028, the price pressure now hitting Apple, Nvidia, and Samsung’s own device lines looks less like a temporary spike and more like a multi-year repricing of consumer hardware, as AI infrastructure demand keeps first claim on chip supply.