Samsung, Micron and SK Hynix accused of spiking memory chip prices by 700%

Finance ^

[nickcarraway]

An antitrust lawsuit has been filed in California alleging that three chipmakers have engaged in collusion and price-fixing, amid a global shortage of memory chips that is driving up prices for manufacturers and consumers.

The class-action lawsuit was filed in the U.S. District Court for the Northern District of California (1) against chip giants Samsung, SK Hynix and Micron. The 17 named plaintiffs (1) are a mix of individuals and small businesses.

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TOPICS: Business/Economy; Computers/Internet; Conspiracy
KEYWORDS: chip; classaction; micron; samsung; semiconductors; skhynix

[TexasFreeper2009]

just supply and demand commies.

AI buildout drove demand through the roof, which critically limited supply which drives up prices.

[algore]

I just wish I had purchased a bunch of ram when I was thinking about making ddr5 machine.

but oh well, at least I have a tonne of ddr4, ecc ddr5 and storage that I should probably sell.

[butlerweave]

GREED

[bankwalker]

supply and demand ...

[TheDon]

“Trade associations say it could also hit the manufacturers of vehicles, medical devices and other goods (4).”

Already happening.

[Dr. Sivana]

just supply and demand commies.

Yup. Three companies can collude on prices, or they could raise prices without colluding, knowing that they will sell all they can make. It isn't like Saudi Arabia or De Beers diamonds, where output is easily scaled up.

If these three companies put their memory up for auction on ebay, the prices would wind up being about the same. If one of the companies sold at the old price, a shell company would buy it ALL, and resell at about the same markup.

If there were a bubble pop, and demand went down, no one would cry for these companies losing their shirts.

Now, one does not put up a fab plant over night, and the old fabs cannot make the memory that people want to spend a lot of money on. So, anyone thinking of getting into the business or even expanding capacity, will need those high prices to fund the expansion.

We had a less extreme version of these price hikes in the early '90s, when people were swapping out their 4x256K Mac SIMMs for 1 MBx 4, and PCs were finding ways to use more than 1MB of RAM. New tech came on board, and things returned to normal.

[Flaming Conservative]

In before some FReepers rant about free enterprise and capitalism. Apparently, to them, pure greed is a plus. Stockholders celebrate.

[dfwgator]

What is that in today's dollars?

[nickcarraway]

I don’t consider this capitalism. It’s not a free market.

[nickcarraway]

If you make a better product, and all the customers want it, fine. When you collude like this, now way.

[algore]

people have short memories.

2020 (Pandemic Shock & High Demand): $310 — Initial global supply chain disruptions combined with a massive surge in work-from-home desktop builds kept kit prices elevated.

2021 (Gradual Normalization): $270 — Supply lines slowly recovered and manufacturing caught up with demand, causing a steady downward trend.

2022 (DDR5 Inception & Overproduction): $220 — As DDR5 motherboards entered the market, suppliers began aggressively discounting DDR4 components to clear out warehouse space.

2023 (The Cyclical Low Point): $160 — Extreme manufacturer oversupply forced flash memory producers to sell remaining DDR4 inventories at or below cost, creating an all-time pricing valley.

Early 2025 (Pre-Crisis Rebound): $190 — Market prices saw a slight natural recovery as bottom-tier manufacturers stopped making DDR4 entirely, shifting to baseline stability.

Late 2025 (The Structural Shortage): $475 — Major fabs entirely halted consumer DDR4 assembly lines to focus on server-side DDR5 and AI-driven High Bandwidth Memory (HBM). Prices sharply doubled.

August 2026 (Current Plateau): $631 — Retail prices have officially flattened out into a highly expensive, supply-constrained plateau