NAND Flash Storage manufacturers are “sold out” through the year 2026, as SSD prices surge, according to a new report.
According to a report from Digitimes Asia, the accelerating global demand for artificial intelligence and cloud computing has pushed has led to SSD prices more than doubling in just six months. Phison Electronics CEO Khein-Seng Pua warned that the imbalance between supply and demand is unlikely to ease anytime soon, projecting that NAND Flash Storage shortages may persist for several years.
The price spike has been dramatic across multiple memory categories. Pua highlighted that TLC 1-terabit NAND, a widely used storage component, jumped from 4.80 US Dollars in July 2025 to 10.70 US Dollars by November, 2025. Even older MLC chips have climbed sharply, reflecting a rebound that accelerated through October. Some NAND products have risen more than 100% since Spring 2025, underscoring the severity of the supply crunch.
Phison, a key supplier of NAND controllers, is currently benefiting from these market conditions. The company reported 18.14 billion New Taiwan Dollars (560 million US Dollars) in revenue for Q3 2025, a 30% year-over-year increase. Gross margins climbed to 32.4%, and net profit reached a three-quarter high, even as R&D costs for advanced technologies trimmed operating margins. October alone saw a stunning 90% annual revenue jump, driven by a 280% surge in PCIe SSD controller shipments.
Pua attributed this growth to “structural demand” created by AI workloads and hyperscale cloud deployments. As data centers rapidly scale up, the industry is accelerating its shift from traditional HDDs to faster SSD-based solutions, placing further strain on NAND supply. Yet chipmakers are hesitant to expand production capacity after years of weak profitability. Pua noted that new fabrication lines won’t come online until late 2027, meaning the tight supply is poised to become a long-term industry norm. Manufacturers are already sold out through 2026, prompting Phison to secure supply early and prioritize high-margin enterprise and industrial clients over retail customers.
To make it through the shortage, Phison is leaning into enterprise SSDs, next-generation PCIe technologies, and its “AI Adaptive+” initiative, which aims to improve AI efficiency while reducing power consumption. As cloud providers increasingly adopt Phison’s storage solutions, and mobile and automotive segments continue to grow, the company expects enterprise SSDs to represent 20–30% of total revenue by 2026.
