Micron CEO Says Memory Supply Will Be Much Tighter in 2027 and 2028 Than in 2026

Thursday, October 1st 2026

Micron CEO Says Memory Supply Will Be Much Tighter in 2027 and 2028 Than in 2026

by DrUsmanSaleem Today, 19:26 Discuss (27 Comments)

Micron CEO Sanjay Mehrotra says memory and storage supply will likely be much tighter in 2027 and 2028 than it was in 2026. He made the remarks during Micron's fiscal Q4 2026 earnings call on September 30, where the company reported record quarterly revenue of $54.2 billion. Here's what he said:

Industry demand has strengthened since our last earnings call, and we expect memory and storage supply-demand conditions to be much tighter in fiscal 2027 and 2028 than they were in 2026. AI is becoming super intelligent, and memory enhances this intelligence and the competitiveness of our customers' platforms. Even with additional industry DRAM clean room space plans with robust demand trends, including new upside requests from customers, we do not have line of sight to when supply and demand will return to balance.

In June, Micron CEO said they expected industry supply to improve gradually in 2028, but couldn't predict when supply would catch up with demand. The company now says it still has no line of sight to a balance, even with additional industry cleanroom space planned. New capacity takes time as well, since Micron's Idaho ID2 fab is only expected to start wafer output in late 2028. Mehrotra also said more than 75% of Micron's 2027 output is already committed to customers. On the consumer side, Micron said DRAM prices rose in the high-teens percent range last quarter, with NAND up about 30%. It looks like relief isn't close, although these are company projections and could change.

Source: Micron Q4 2026 Earnings Call Transcript

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27 Comments on Micron CEO Says Memory Supply Will Be Much Tighter in 2027 and 2028 Than in 2026

The cartel has spoken.

Consumers are being fleeced by these chumps. If you look at TrendForce, at the actual module prices, the markup on memory is absolutely insane. If I didn't know any better, I would say the memory makers are colluding with AI companies to price the average person out of their products which makes data sovereignty all but impossible. The peasants will get their Xboxes and Playstations, but no private AI for the common man who can't pay through the nose. At the end of the day, it's all about control.

Pricing out the working class from the modern means of production

The big 3 are price fixing and colluding to keep prices high. Micron is making an 87% profit margin, they should be capable of alleviating the consumer shortages but have no interest since they've dropped Crucial.

You know what, at this point... I don't even know what to say. PISSES me off to say the least.

Samsung and Hynix said the same thing, it's like the police interrogating three suspects and they all give the same answers The dram shortage and price increases will continue cause we said so - DRAM Cartel

Hmm, I imagine a lot of people are probably something along the lines of "Oi Sanjay Mehrotra, go fck yourself and do one, you complete and utter meatsack"

Pushing the goal post again for their fake scam shortage and record beyond belief profits are we?

TumnisConsumers are being fleeced by these chumps. If you look at TrendForce, at the actual module prices, the markup on memory is absolutely insane. If I didn't know any better, I would say the memory makers are colluding with AI companies to price the average person out of their products which makes data sovereignty all but impossible. The peasants will get their Xboxes and Playstations, but no private AI for the common man who can't pay through the nose. At the end of the day, it's all about control.

It is literally a new Version of the Dark-Age they are creating, AI-Compute is the new land, only the Rich, formerly the The nobility, own it / can have it, the peasants have to obey those who control and own all the Compute.

#10

Translation: I didn't say AI enough times during the earnings call 16 hours ago and our stock didn't move, and that was on me, so here goes: AIAIAIAIAIAIAIAIAI... I mean umm.. SI! SI SI! There's so much whatever-it's-called, you can't even fathom how much memory it needs.

#11

At this point they give 0 f's about consumers. They'll be back, hopefully sooner than later.

#12

Meanwhile, SK hynix is investing tens of billions in new facilities, and CXMT is expanding at a rapid pace. What else can be done? Are we supposed to pull out the War Powers act again and bulldoze a few national parks to make more fabs?

MTS-CPushing the goal post again for their fake scam shortage and record beyond belief profits are we?

The shortage is not fake. Unless you have evidence all the money being paid for RAM is fake, and all the orders are fake. In which case you should be talking to the SEC.

#13

Get ready for renting a pc in the future.

#14

AI is becoming super intelligent

"There is still gold to dig, and you're so close I can smell it!", said the washing cradle maker, after a call from the shovel maker. I think for every quarter earnings call, the speeches are going to become so toxic-positive, the more we hear about news like these. Or these.

#15

This isn't new, all the DRAM makers have already said that they are sold out because of long term contracts, so, how is this shocking to anyone that supply is very tight? It is not artificial shortages, they can't produce enough, and yes, the data centers are the root cause of this because THEY are hording for the future, since they can't build fast enough because of shortages all along the supply chain and the grid equipment is back-ordered as well The only fix is to have all lenders stop giving data centers blank checks, and that just isn't going to happen, they could care less if the bubble bursts, they will still get paid no matter what It is also not price fixing because of the above, no matter what price the DRAM makers set, the data center guys STILL buy it

#16

TheinsanegamerNMeanwhile, SK hynix is investing tens of billions in new facilities, and CXMT is expanding at a rapid pace.

What else can be done? Are we supposed to pull out the War Powers act again and bulldoze a few national parks to make more fabs?

The shortage is not fake. Unless you have evidence all the money being paid for RAM is fake, and all the orders are fake. In which case you should be talking to the SEC.

Yeah, for some reason a bunch of people don't seem to grok that Google/Facebook/Microsoft/Amazon/etc are all tossing tens of billions of dollars, or more, at data center build outs than they were just a few years ago. Google, just by itself, spent \~$52 billion in Capex in 2024; this year they are looking like they will hit $200 billion in capex. And a lot of that cash is going to the memory makers. And if this memory shortage really was due to collusion by the DRAM companies instead of insane demand, well that would make those big tech companies the biggest VICTIMS of said collusion, and the ones who have the biggest motive to get anti-trust authorities looking at the memory makers.

#17

Acting like the bubble won't pop before 2028 coming from a DRAM/NAND producer is so amusing. Like, "well guys, thank God our new cash cow will certainly be around for two more years---phew!". Just because you say something doesn't make it true, silly Micron.

#18

GenericUsername2001Yeah, for some reason a bunch of people don't seem to grok that Google/Facebook/Microsoft/Amazon/etc are all tossing tens of billions of dollars, or more, at data center build outs than they were just a few years ago. Google, just by itself, spent \~$52 billion in Capex in 2024; this year they are looking like they will hit $200 billion in capex. And a lot of that cash is going to the memory makers. And if this memory shortage really was due to collusion by the DRAM companies instead of insane demand, well that would make those big tech companies the biggest VICTIMS of said collusion, and the ones who have the biggest motive to get anti-trust authorities looking at the memory makers.

All the hyper scalers are also being conned by DRAM Cartel and compared to average consumers its much worse situation for them. At some point they also will run out of money to spend and spending 25-40% on single component is just a rip off.

#19

Beating will continue until morale improves.

#20

I hope this is being archived

#21

Of course , why would they increase the volume ? Manufacture scarcity , profit ... that's the name of the capitalistic game !

#22

TheinsanegamerNMeanwhile, SK hynix is investing tens of billions in new facilities, and CXMT is expanding at a rapid pace.

What else can be done? Are we supposed to pull out the War Powers act again and bulldoze a few national parks to make more fabs?

There are solutions that require zero investment 1. cap the amount of memory that can be consumed by any one industry during shortages. 2. place minimum allocation quotas for each industry during shortages 3. Produce less HBM. HBM takes 3 times as many wafers to produce compared to traditional DDR5. As Micron pointed out, DDR5 is already more profitable to boot. 4. Add a fee that kicks in above a certain purchase volume that increases the more capacity a company books. This ensure the cost burden of expansion falls on the people causing the shortage. These are things a non-cartel memory industry would implement, because you wouldn't screw over your existing customers like this if you thought they had other options Memory production investments represent around a 29% YoY increase but it should be noted that 2022 and 2025 both saw similar expenditure so that 29% increase is the total increase as compared to the last speak. Certainly not what I'd call an industry rushing to meet historic demand. In fact one has to wonder just how much of that is eaten up by cost increases brought on by AI. The cost of building has gone up as has the materials. The cost isn't what concerns them given their profits but to people looking to see if they are tackling the worse shortage in the industry's history, it makes their additional investments seem even less impressive. They've secured contracts guaranteeing them record high minimums but they are very clearly still hedging their bets that in case an AI crash, supply won't crash the market. As demonstrated above, they are easy and equitable solutions without massive capEx. They just don't want to.

#23

Looking forward to giving you the middle finger in a few years when you create the Crucial brand again Micron, and beg consumers to buy, because AI is all done with you. Plot twist, I won't be buying your ram, and if Chinese alternative ram makers are on the market then, I will buy those instead for my next builds. I never forget. Go fk yourselves. The right wing won't be in power forever protecting your market dominance. ;)

#24

dtoxicGet ready for renting a pc in the future.

That's already a thing.

#25

ChaitanyaAll the hyper scalers are also being conned by DRAM Cartel and compared to average consumers its much worse situation for them. At some point they also will run out of money to spend and spending 25-40% on single component is just a rip off.

Those are making a bet so far into the end-game on the premise that all of that CapEx spending is going to generate decades of service revenue, that if something is to fail, I bet that storage will keep at a premium, just because of the sheer pressure of individual clients like you and me buying a handful of drives to hold our data, since they can't. 2028 is a thing because hyperscalers should start having ROI and AI scaling has plateaued anyway, meaning even the AI DCs competing with them are not ordering more components. For us it's 2030 because the cartel says so. Even though there are voices of industry outside of the cartel becoming louder, that see their businesses at risk.

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Micron CEO Says Memory Supply Will Be Much Tighter in 2027 and 2028 Than in 2026

Micron CEO Says Memory Supply Will Be Much Tighter in 2027 and 2028 Than in 2026

Micron CEO Says Memory Supply Will Be Much Tighter in 2027 and 2028 Than in 2026

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27 Comments on Micron CEO Says Memory Supply Will Be Much Tighter in 2027 and 2028 Than in 2026

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