North American buyers continue to raise their order forecasts, and with suppliers unable to adjust capacity in time, enterprise SSD contract prices keep rising this quarter, though Chinese customers are resisting the increases. Looking ahead to next year, demand remains strong only in North America, and YMTC’s aggressive push for market share adds headwinds to further price hikes. Elevated prices may also dampen subsequent procurement. Meanwhile, Agentic AI is prompting HDD makers to resume capacity expansion.

Key Highlights

• Current-quarter pricing: North American customers are aggressively placing orders and broadly accepting price increases. China, constrained by limited AI revenue contribution and tight GPU supply, is resisting suppliers’ quotes. Amid this tug-of-war, enterprise SSD contract prices continue to rise.
• Next-year outlook: Demand outside North America and in consumer markets remains weak, which limits suppliers’ ability to push prices higher. YMTC’s aggressive drive to expand bit market share adds further resistance to price hikes early next year, and persistently high prices may dampen subsequent procurement.
• Industry trends: The rollout of Agentic AI is driving a surge in demand for general-purpose servers and storage. In response, HDD suppliers are resuming capacity expansion, accelerating HAMR technology, and raising PMR and SMR capacities.
• Strategic focus: Enterprise QLC SSDs are priced far above HDDs, and this cost disadvantage may constrain their growth. A key challenge ahead is whether NAND suppliers can introduce innovative SSD positioning between traditional storage and memory to optimize AI inference costs.

Table of Contents

1. Contract Prices of Enterprise SSD Continued to Climb by 15-20% in 4Q26 as Price Hikes Carry on from Persistently Strong North American Demand
2. Agentic AI Catalyzes New Wave of Storage; Competitions of Product Iterations Now Intensifying
   • Enterprise SSD Contract Price Update

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