Face palm: Major memory manufacturers have repeatedly warned shareholders that the memory industry is in for many more years of chaos and high prices. Now smaller providers like TeamGroup are sounding the same alarm, saying conditions will soon become brutal in terms of both pricing and availability.
TeamGroup recently reported financial results for its most recent quarter. Aside from the rising numbers and changing market trends, the report highlights the worrying direction in which the entire chip industry is heading. As it turns out, the worst of the memory shortage is yet to come.
According to TeamGroup CEO Chen Ching-wen, prices will continue to rise for many months. The IT industry will experience its worst chip shortage from the last quarter of 2026 to the end of the second quarter next year. For the time being, customers can still purchase chip-based products for an additional charge. Soon, Chen said, people will no longer be able to buy anything, even if they have money left over.
TeamGroup is a Taiwanese manufacturer operating multiple brands of computer memory, memory cards, solid-state drives, mobile accessories and other chip-based industrial products. The company relies on major memory chip makers for supplies, and those supplies are quickly running out.
Chen said TeamGroup has been trading with chipmakers and signing long-term supply contracts for around 30 years, but in today’s market nothing is “traditional” anymore. A “wild” price rally is underway, the company confirmed. The contract price for DDR5 16Gbit chips was $8.70 in October 2025 and increased to $48 in September 2026. DDR4 8Gb chips have also seen a surge, and it’s even worse in the spot market, where there’s a 30% to 50% premium.
“We have contracts but can’t get enough volume, so we have to go to the spot market and pay a premium to secure the supply,” Chen said.
Prices aren’t the only annoyance TeamGroup highlights. The company now does most of its business in the B2B market, supplying storage and industrial control applications to enterprise customers. B2B sales increased from around 24% in the first three quarters of 2025 to 64% in the first three quarters of 2026, while B2C consumer sales fell from 75% to 35% over the same period.
Chen explained that TeamGroup does not change its strategic positioning unilaterally, but simply adapts to massive changes in demand and customer needs. Most of the industry’s DRAM production has now been absorbed by AI data centers and other enterprise-class applications.
Of course, this AI-driven market disruption also has a bright spot for TeamGroup and other storage manufacturers. In the third quarter of 2026, the Taiwanese company’s revenue increased 33% quarter-on-quarter to NT$10.139 billion (approximately $311.5 million). Operating profit rose 46.8% to NT$4.511 billion, while net profit after tax rose nearly 50% to NT$3.618 billion.
