The cost of RAM has risen significantly recently, which is influencing consumer demand and resellers must respond to this.
RAM was once one of the cheapest computer components, but the huge growth in data centres – fuelled by the rise of AI – which also need RAM has seen demand shoot up and caused supply issues, which is pushing prices up.
Ian Foddering, VP Europe for SHI, says he expects to see a 50% increase in memory prices this year. “That’s on top of the rises we saw in 2025, which saw DRAM surge 171% compared to the previous year,” he adds. “We’ve seen them continue to rise in November, December, then again in January, and we’re expecting them to rise again throughout the year as we navigate through the situation.
“We’re in this situation because the high bandwidth memory demanded by AI datacentres consumes three times the amount of wafers, which is the underlying, foundational requirement to manufacture RAM, and this is causing supply shortages.
“For the market, that’s going to translate into higher prices as well as capacity shortages in the datacentre and limited stock availability, which will delay shipments.”
Ruth Wildman, commercial director of Millstream Technology Ltd, says she has seen RAM prices increase by 140% on standard memory and SSDs since October 2025. “That, alongside the supply issues, make it extremely difficult to plan for upgrades and resolve memory related faults,” she says.
“We would usually carry out several upgrades a month, but we cannot get the stock and it is not cost effective for the clients.”
Mike Barron, UK managing director, SYNAXON, says the rise is having a knock-on effect on hardware vendors as they can’t get enough DRAM to populate all the laptops, PCs, workstations, tablets, smartphones, servers and storage devices they had planned to manufacture. “This has led to significant shortages in some product categories – particularly at the entry-level as vendors are focused on building higher value products,” he says. “The upside is that with a scarcity of supply, selling prices are holding up and sales of the higher value products, for which there generally better availability, are strengthening.”
Problems caused
The rising cost of RAM is causing issues for resellers, especially those that build PCs/laptops for customers. Indeed, Ruth says Millstream Technology has temporarily stopped building PCs. “The lack of supply and cost of RAM and SSDs makes it non-viable,” she explains. “We will reassess this month, maybe offering some solutions with older technology but that seems like a step backwards.”
Ian says he is starting to see lead times for deliveries on servers and storage kick out above 20 weeks. “We continue to expect that to kind of increase throughout the year,” he adds. “But maybe the worst side effect of this is causing a lot more volatility, so quoting and pricing are a moving feast. We used to have pricing that we could lock in for 90 days, 60 days, 30 days. Now, in some cases, we’re down to a week. Even after you place a purchase order, we’ve had some issues where orders have been cancelled because we couldn’t fulfil them in time; we had an agreement with a customer who needed it within a quarter, but it just wasn’t possible because the gear didn’t exist.”
James Reed, managing director – Endpoint Solutions, UK and Ireland, TD SYNNEX, agrees reseller partners are having to manage quotes more carefully as prices for products not currently available from stock could change at relatively short notice. “For systems builders, sourcing memory continues to be a challenge, and the higher cost of these components will, inevitably, have to be passed on to the end user customer,” he notes.
Customer demand
This rise in prices is affecting customer demand too. Ian says that while he hasn’t seen the situation affect refresh in terms of customers delaying their purchasing decisions, it has changed what they buy. “This is not an issue where the decision is ‘buy now or wait’ but rather ‘what’s essential’” he explains. “Because of that we’re seeing refresh transformed as a process, with the focus on securing supply for what matters most.
“This form of ‘intelligent refresh’ sees the customer identify where the shortages will hit most, with procurement then shifted to accommodate those critical projects. They’re prioritising based on users and workloads, so that they can protect high memory configurations for roles and systems where performance is business critical. That refresh strategy can be shared to show timelines, supply risks and budget triggers and a runbook started to help drive decisions on what to accelerate, what to delay and what to standardise.”
James has also not seen any slow-down in demand. “Indeed, the strong performance we saw in in the second half of last year has continued into 2026,” he adds. “While some of that is due to businesses catching up and upgrading to Windows 11, we’ve also seen a steady rise demand for AI PCs, which are now seen as a good long-term investment. There are also signs that more businesses are now committing investment to infrastructure. Rather than putting off decisions, many businesses may be bringing investment forward.”
However, Ruth has found a differing picture. “Many clients have put a hold on IT refreshes, and we have lost orders because people do not have the money to spend to replace systems,” she says. “We have clients that desperately need to refresh their PCs but simply can’t afford to do so.
“Those clients that purchase systems regularly now have to budget more and are reutilising older or refurb equipment rather than replacing. It has an indirect effect on recruitment too, pushing up the total onboarding costs of new employees.”
Reseller conversations
The situation with RAM is something customers might not be aware of, so resellers need to approach conversations about it with caution.
“It is important for clients to realise that there is no such thing as low-end IT for business anymore,” says Ruth. “You need to be serious about organising IT budgets, looking at how your business is evolving and how IT will be required in that evolution process.
“Plan refreshes over a period to spread cost or look at finance options. With the way technology is evolving so rapidly and the integration of AI, customers need to be purchasing IT that is fit for their business and, unfortunately, that now comes at a cost.”
Ian says resellers should steer customers away from the temptation to panic-buy. “That does nobody any good and will inflate the market,” he says. “But do encourage them to stay ahead of shortages with inventory hold and lifecycle planning. Reserve hardware early, store it securely, and deploy on schedule so price spikes and lead-time surprises don’t derail the roadmap of the business.
“Technology providers have a key role to play in helping their customers navigate these unprecedented levels of demand. They can advise on and help test and benchmark alternatives, provide flexible financing to help them secure hardware while managing budgeting and timing, and advise on how to use intelligent refresh to offset the scarcity in supply.”
James says partners need to carefully manage customer expectations. “Especially when it comes to quotations as prices are more likely to change at short notice,” he says. “If a customer wants to upgrade in the near-term, partners should encourage them to be decisive about their requirements and planning.”
Future
The rising cost of RAM is an evolving situation. Ruth says that there has been a bit of stability in the marketplace recently. “There is more availability in distribution and prices seemed to have plateaued but are still massively inflated from six months ago,” she says. “I cannot see that the situation is sustainable, either with regards to stock or prices, but only time will tell. I don’t think prices will come back to where they were.
“It is a commodity that every business and most individuals need to operate and carry out their day to day lives, therefore there will always be demand regardless of cost. Hopefully I am proven wrong, but in the meantime, we will keep monitoring the situation for our clients and try to find ways to alleviate the consequences.”
Ian is optimistic that the situation will get better. “We anticipate the market improving from Q4 of this year, with prices expected to go down and availability begin to recover in January 2027,” he says.
“That’s looking at the current curve of the market, however, so it could change. But there are several innovative developments that will help the market to recover. There are new fabrication plants coming online and 3D chip stacking such as by TSMC, which could see chips integrated into high-density configurations, resulting in a more compact and efficient design.
“The market will innovate and catch up but until then businesses will need to take a more adaptive approach that sees them prioritise device replenishment and optimise their use of datacentre capacity.”
