Exceleram warns of escalating memory shortages
“We are not even close to the peak of the memory shortage” – claims Exceleram VP
Steffen Eisenstein, Exceleram’s VP of Product, has given the world his insights on the global memory/RAM crisis, the shortage that is gutting the consumer tech industry. What he says is eye-opening, and his conclusions are clear. “We are not even close to the peak of the memory shortage”, he says; further price increases and challenges are coming.
The matter of fact is: We are not even close to the peak of the memory shortage. Companies and consumers alike need to prepare for higher prices and further challenges.
– Steffen Eisenstein, VP of Product at Exceleram – via Mad Shrimps
Eisenstein places the start of the crisis in Q4 2025, October specifically. That was when DRAM prices started to rise sharply. That was when the industry first recognised that a shortage was coming. New DRAM became “increasingly expensive”, forcing DRAM kit manufacturers to raise their prices.
Later this year, Micron killed its Crucial sub-brand and exited the consumer DRAM/SSD market. This signalled a major shift for the DRAM/storage market, and the consumer PC market along with it.
Exceleram cancelled its Computex booth and moved to “crisis communications”. Sales “declined sharply” in the first half of 2026, but demand strengthened (a little) in Q2/Q3. Simply put, things were not going to return to normal soon. That means that people had to accept higher DRAM prices.
At the beginning of this year [2026], analysts and the media began talking about the memory crisis. DRAM prices continued to rise. Our inventories were empty, new production was expensive, and demand collapsed. We even canceled our Computex booth because under these circumstances, it did not make sense to find new resellers..
We switched to crisis communications, and supply delays occurred. We were able to largely maintain production in order to supply our existing partners. Nevertheless, sales declined sharply. At the same time, we began receiving new inquiries from potential distributors looking to enter the RAM market. The currently high prices probably look attractive at first glance.
However, in the second and third quarters of this year, we saw somewhat stronger demand again. Companies and consumers are buying more cautiously, but they are buying RAM again. I remember a conversation with a journalist this summer. At one point, he said: “People have accepted that RAM has become more expensive and is not going to get cheaper again.”
Nevertheless, the truth is that high RAM prices also lead to lower demand and tougher competition. Actual margins are therefore smaller than the current prices might suggest. Entering the market as a distributor is also difficult.
– Steffen Eisenstein, VP of Product at Exceleram – via Mad Shrimps
The DRAM crisis has entered a new phase
As a manufacturer, Exceleram believes that “we are only at the beginning of the [memory] crisis.” Securing DRAM chips is proving challenging for module manufacturers, and maintaining a reliable memory supply is challenging for manufacturers. The problem with the DRAM market today isn’t (just) pricing; it’s memory availability in general. There isn’t enough memory for everyone, making memory supplies unreliable for the companies that need it.
For consumer DRAM kit manufacturers, high prices have led to “lower demand and tougher competition”. While DRAM prices are high, margins are low. Let’s face it, customers don’t want to pay more than what they have to for DRAM. It’s hard to justify premium DDR5 memory when all DDR5 modules cost more than 4x what they did last year.
Unfortunately, things are not getting back to normal. Instead, as a RAM manufacturer, we believe we are only at the beginning of the crisis. We have learned a lot as a manufacturer during this crisis, but the market is brutal. It has never been this difficult to secure DRAM. In some cases, we have not received any offers for the chips we need for weeks. At the same time, supply security is becoming increasingly difficult.
This is no longer about reaching another all-time high in prices. It is no longer just about overpriced DRAM or other expensive components. Instead, there are simply no reliable supply options available.
The crisis has now become so far-reaching that it is also slowing down the development of new consumer hardware. NVIDIA, for example, has long been the subject of criticism within the gaming community. Many PC gamers feel neglected. That is the uncomfortable truth: The RAM crisis is far from over. It may have only just begun.
– Steffen Eisenstein, VP of Product at Exceleram – via Mad Shrimps
As it stands, Execeleram doesn’t expect the DRAM shortage to end anytime soon. People who are expecting DRAM prices to fall in 2027 may be disappointed. If Eisenstein is correct, things will get worse before they get better. DRAM manufacturers are working to increase supply, but it will take much more production to meet the world’s demand for DRAM. New factories take time to build, and even then, the first new sites will only lessen the shortage, not eliminate it.
Join the discussion on Exceleram’s comments on the DRAM supply crisis on the OC3D Forums.
