UBS has raised its forecasts for DRAM and NAND flash pricing, pointing to stronger-than-expected market conditions and an ongoing supply imbalance that it believes will persist for years.
The firm now expects baseline DDR contract prices to increase by 32% quarter-on-quarter in Q3 2026, up from its previous forecast of 17%. It also raised its Q4 2026 forecast to an 18% quarter-on-quarter increase, compared with an earlier estimate of 12%. These revisions follow a 57% quarter-on-quarter increase recorded in Q2 2026.
According to UBS, pricing will vary between memory manufacturers depending on factors such as longer-term supply agreements, High-Bandwidth Memory pricing and product mix.
The investment bank also maintained its view that the DRAM industry will remain undersupplied until at least Q2 2028. It forecasts DRAM bit demand growth of 36.2% year-on-year in 2027, while supply is expected to grow by just 19.3%. UBS said the resulting gap would leave the market with an unprecedented supply deficit.
For NAND flash, UBS has also upgraded its outlook. The firm now expects prices to rise 30% quarter-on-quarter in Q3 2026, compared with its previous forecast of 17%, while maintaining its Q4 2026 projection of a 12% increase. NAND prices had already climbed 67% quarter-on-quarter in Q2 2026.
UBS expects the NAND upcycle to continue until at least the fourth quarter of 2027.
Based on its revised outlook, the firm forecasts total memory industry revenue to reach $992bn in 2026 before rising to $1.763tn in 2027. UBS added that the biggest risk to the prolonged pricing cycle is whether customers, particularly hyperscale cloud providers, can continue to afford the required investment needed to support growing demand.
