Analyst's bombshell memory price forecast shifts Micron bets

The memory market just went into a "hyper-bull" phase, which is not something analysts mention lightly.

If the call is correct, Micron Technology stands to gain the most, at least as long as the supply squeeze lasts.

Memory prices are at an "all-time high" because AI and server buildouts are using up capacity, Counterpoint Research said in a recent note.

The firm believes that in the fourth quarter of 2025, memory prices will rise by 40% to 50%. In the first quarter of 2026, they will jump by another 40% to 50%, and then they will drop to about 20% in the second quarter of 2026.

A memory pricing shock is rewriting the cycle

The most interesting data point from Counterpoint is server DRAM.

The company indicated that the price of 64GB RDIMM climbed from $255 in the third quarter of 2025 to $450 in the fourth quarter of 2025, with a goal of $700 by March 2026, according to Counterpoint Research.

It also mentioned a situation in which prices may reach $1,000 this year, which would mean around $1.95 per Gb, almost twice the peak it anticipated in 2018.

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That matters to Micron, because memory is one of the hardest industries in semiconductors when prices go down, and one of the most profitable when prices go up.

A market that is getting tighter doesn't only raise sales. It can also quickly increase margins, since many of the costs of making memory chips are rather stable once the fabs are up and running.

Why the AI buildout keeps tilting power toward suppliers

The main reason is the same one that drives a lot of tech's capital expenditures arms race: AI infrastructure.

GPUs are not the only thing data centers need. To keep those accelerators going, they need a lot of high-bandwidth, high-capacity memory. And as demand shifts to newer, higher-margin server parts, older categories can run out of stock.

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Counterpoint said that supply for old memory types such as LPDDR4 and eMMC is "evaporating" as big companies shift to making higher-margin server DDR5.

That dynamic can make things worse for the whole hardware ecosystem, with parts that cost more, take longer to get, and offer less negotiating power.

Micron has also been quite clear about how long these limits can endure. Company officials have said tight conditions could last for years because it takes time for new capacity to come online.

Hardware costs start to bend

Memory doesn't simply affect how much you spend on the cloud; it also affects how much you spend on consumer devices.

Counterpoint's letter said that rising memory costs are changing bills of materials for hardware makers, such as smartphone makers, because premium configurations are making memory a bigger part of the cost.

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That's a good and bad thing for IT.

• Good for memory makers: Rising prices mean higher margins and more power in negotiations.
• Riskier for device brands: Expenses are under more pressure, and manufacturers have more reason to change specs or raise prices.

You can already observe examples of the squeezing in the public market. MarketWatch recently pointed out that rising memory costs are hurting the profits of several hardware companies, The LA Times reported.

Wall Street is looking for the upside, but the cycle is still the cycle

The rise in Micron's stock isn't due solely to one research report. It's about the market starting to factor in a longer, tighter upcycle.

In early January, several sources, such as IndexBox, reported that analysts were upping their price forecasts for Micron because they thought that DRAM prices and demand driven by AI were rising faster than predicted.

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Investors should remember one thing, though: Memory has a long history of going too far.

When prices are this high, the industry will eventually respond by increasing capacity and capital spending. That means Micron bulls might be right about the transaction, but they might still be too early on the turn.

In simple terms, assuming Counterpoint's path continues and supply stays tight until mid-2026, Micron's leverage gets better. The market might cool down quickly if capacity grows more quickly than projected.

The "hyper-bull" story is gaining traction right now, and it's making the Micron talk go from "late-cycle risk" back to "pricing power."

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