Micron: RAM shortage to persist through 2027 and into 2028

Micron has warned that global RAM shortages show no sign of easing, with most of next year's production already sold. On its earnings call, the company said demand would keep outstripping supply through 2027 and into 2028.

CEO Sanjay Mehrotra said Micron does not have line of sight to when supply and demand will return to balance. The company plans to bring new factories online in 2028, backed by $25 billion in planned capital expenditure for the first half of its new financial year.

Micron's memory business is benefiting from the squeeze. Its cloud memory unit posted an 83 per cent gross margin in Q4, up from 59 per cent a year earlier, while its core datacenter business hit a 90 per cent gross margin, up from 41 per cent. Datacenter SSD sales almost hit $10 billion for the quarter, over 1,000 per cent higher year-on-year.

The company also highlighted work with Nvidia on NV-HBM, described as the industry's first custom HBM4E implementation for next-generation GPUs and NVLink Fusion platforms.

The warning follows similar comments from Samsung, which recently said in an earnings call that it expects the component shortage crisis to continue getting worse into next year. Prices of consumer devices including the PlayStation 5, Xbox Series X/S and Switch 2 have gone up several times in some cases. Valve's Steam Machine launched at a much higher price than Valve expected, and the company hinted it may have to raise prices again.