Micron CEO Warns Global Memory Shortage Will Persist Through 2028

Micron Technology has issued a stark warning to investors and consumers alike, declaring that the global RAM shortage shows no sign of easing and is expected to intensify through 2027 and into 2028. Speaking on its recent earnings call, CEO and chair Sanjay Mehrotra revealed that the company has already sold most of next year’s production capacity, signaling a supply-demand imbalance that executives admit they cannot forecast an end to.

The announcement comes as consumers worldwide continue to grapple with rising prices across electronics. According to The Register, Mehrotra advised customers to brace for prices well above what they paid in 2026, describing the industry’s supply-demand balance as “only getting tighter.” He candidly acknowledged that Micron does “not have line of sight to when supply and demand will return to balance,” underscoring the depth of uncertainty surrounding memory markets.

The AI-Driven Squeeze on Consumer Memory

A significant driver behind the shortage is the overwhelming demand for high-bandwidth memory (HBM), a specialized chip type essential for powering AI datacentres. As most manufacturing capacity has been booked to meet this surging need, the big three memory manufacturers—including Micron, Samsung, and SK Hynix—have very little dedicated to consumer-grade memory. This scarcity has driven prices for everyday RAM modules sharply higher.

The ripple effects have been felt across virtually every sector of electronics manufacturing. As pushed up the prices of pretty much every consumer electronic device that uses these chips, the shortage has particularly impacted gaming hardware. Game consoles such as the PlayStation 5, Xbox Series X/S and Switch 2 have all seen their retail prices climb, having gone up in price several times in some cases.

The impact extends to PC gaming as well. Valve’s Steam Machine launched at a much higher price than Valve expected, and the company hinted it may even have to raise prices again—a clear indication of how deeply the chip shortage has permeated the entertainment industry.

“We don’t have line of sight to when supply and demand will return to balance. The supply-demand balance is only getting tighter.”

Sanjay Mehrotra, CEO and Chair of Micron

New Factories Won’t Bring Immediate Relief

Micron outlined plans to bring new factories online in 2028, backed by $25 billion in planned capital expenditure for the first half of its new financial year. However, executives cautioned that this additional capacity will not deliver immediate relief on either price or availability, meaning consumers should expect continued pressure well into the near future.

Mehrotra explained that HBM is growing in demand faster than the DRAM used in servers, prompting Micron to focus on lifting its margins on HBM, which currently trails DRAM in profitability. The financial figures illustrate this shift dramatically: Micron’s cloud memory unit, which covers HBM, posted an 83 per cent gross margin in Q4, up from 59 per cent a year earlier. Its core datacenter business, selling more DRAM, hit 90 per cent, up from 41 per cent.

Datacenter SSD sales nearly reached $10 billion for the quarter, representing an increase of over 1,000 per cent year-on-year. The company also highlighted its collaboration with Nvidia on NV-HBM, billed as the industry’s first custom HBM4E implementation for next-generation GPUs and NVLink Fusion platforms, while noting that AI-driven demand is widening the market for its NAND-based SSDs.

A Broader Industry Crisis

Micron’s grim outlook aligns with warnings from competitors facing the same pressures. Samsung, one of the largest manufacturers of memory and storage in the world, also recently delivered bad news for anyone hoping the global component shortages will ease soon. In its own earnings call, the South Korean giant revealed that it expects the crisis to continue getting worse into next year.

The convergence of these warnings from multiple major manufacturers suggests that gamers and consumers should prepare for a prolonged period of elevated prices. With new production capacity not expected until 2028 and demand continuing to outstrip supply, the road back to normal memory pricing appears long and uncertain for the entire electronics industry.