Manipulating DRAM Prices Through HBM Transition? Memory Giants Samsung, SK Hynix, Micron Face US Antitrust Class Action

TradingKey - The surge in global DRAM prices is evolving from an industry crisis into a legal storm.

Samsung, SK Hynix, and Micron ( MU ), the three chip giants controlling nearly 90% of the global DRAM market share, are facing a class-action lawsuit in a California federal court, accused of colluding to restrict traditional DRAM capacity under the guise of a strategic transition to artificial intelligence High Bandwidth Memory (HBM), driving related prices to surge by approximately 700% over the past four years.

This price surge, dubbed "RAMpocalypse," has not only forced device manufacturers like Apple ( AAPL) and other device manufacturers to raise prices, but has also put the memory industry's oligopolistic competitive landscape on trial for antitrust violations.

Three Memory Giants Face Antitrust Lawsuit

The core argument of this lawsuit directly targets the capacity allocation strategies of the three major memory giants. Representing consumers and businesses that have purchased products containing conventional DRAM in recent years, the plaintiffs allege that Samsung, SK Hynix, and Micron leveraged their oligopolistic dominance in the global DRAM market to coordinate capacity cuts for commercial memory such as DDR3 and DDR4 under the pretext of transitioning to HBM, thereby artificially creating a supply shortage.

Data cited in the complaint shows that since 2022, the three companies have shifted approximately 25% of their DRAM wafer capacity to HBM chip production. Because the physical area of an HBM chip is twice that of a standard DDR chip, this means that producing each HBM chip consumes double the wafer area.

Although total global DRAM wafer capacity is projected to grow by 14% by 2026, the capacity allocated to conventional DRAM is expected to grow by only 10%. This supply-demand gap has directly caused the supply shortage of consumer-grade memory to continue widening.

The lawsuit contends that the three giants could have simultaneously expanded conventional DRAM capacity to fill the gap, but chose instead to concentrate their capacity shifts toward the more profitable HBM segment—where the gross margin of HBM chips is three to five times that of conventional DRAM.

This selective capacity allocation is alleged to be a new form of 'coordinated production cuts,' which ultimately caused DRAM prices to surge by a cumulative total of approximately 700% over the past four years.

Apple's recent across-the-board price hikes for its iPad and Mac product lines were cited as a prime example of price pass-through, with the plaintiffs arguing that this is the direct damage resulting from the artificial contraction of upstream supply.

Monopolistic Past: HBM Transition is Merely "New Packaging"

In 2005, Samsung pleaded guilty to the U.S. Department of Justice for manipulating DRAM prices between 1999 and 2002 and paid a $300 million fine, which was the second-largest criminal fine in U.S. antitrust history at the time.

That same year, SK Hynix also pleaded guilty and was fined $185 million. Combined with Elpida's fine, the total penalties in the case reached $731 million, with multiple executives involved sentenced to prison.

The complaint explicitly cites this historical record, attempting to prove to the court that the three companies have a systematic and repetitive pattern of collusive behavior. The plaintiffs argue that the previous price manipulation was achieved by coordinating output and quotes, and is now merely repackaged as the "HBM transition," while the essence remains leveraging their oligopolistic status to artificially control market supply.

This prior record provides strong precedent for the current allegations, while also increasing the public relations and legal costs for the defendants' defense.

Litigation Unlikely to Alter Supply-Demand Dynamics, Memory "Super-Inflation" May Become the Norm

Regardless of how the lawsuit unfolds, there is a broad market consensus that elevated memory prices are unlikely to reverse in the short term. The latest forecast from Jefferies shows that in the third quarter of 2026, memory prices will rise by another 40% to 50% quarter-on-quarter, followed by an additional 30% to 40% quarter-on-quarter increase in the fourth quarter. For the full year of 2027, prices are still projected to grow 40% to 45% year-on-year, with any substantial price deceleration not expected until 2028 at the earliest. This implies that the cost pressures faced by downstream businesses and end consumers will persist for a significant period.

In terms of industry trends, HBM will continue to cannibalize traditional DRAM capacity, with HBM projected to account for approximately 25% of global DRAM wafer capacity by 2026, while AI server demand for HBM is growing at an annual rate of about 70%. Samsung, SK Hynix, and Micron also hold a monopoly in the HBM sector, together commanding over 95% of the global HBM market share, which enables them to continue dictating the pace of capacity allocation.

Legal experts point out that such antitrust lawsuits typically take years to resolve, and even if price manipulation is ultimately proven, it is unlikely to alter the supply and demand dynamics of the memory market in the short term. For consumers, this means they may need to prepare for prolonged high memory prices, while whether this lawsuit can break the oligopoly of the memory industry remains to be seen.