Citi: Memory market expected to remain in a state of supply shortage throughout next year

Citi released a report stating that the bank has revised its supply and demand outlook for DRAM (Dynamic Random Access Memory) and NAND (flash memory) to reflect third-quarter 2026 earnings releases and recent market dynamics, and expects the memory market to remain in a state of supply shortage throughout 2027. The bank said that given that global memory suppliers such as Samsung and Hynix have raised their bit growth guidance, and affected by the upward revision to supply guidance and weak consumer NAND demand, the DRAM supply-demand gap is expected to narrow from -8.7% to -3.8% in 2027. Nevertheless, due to strong growth in demand for server DRAM and enterprise solid-state drives (eSSD) (forecast to grow 53% and 52% year on year, respectively, in 2027), memory demand still exceeds newly added supply; currently, the memory supply-demand fulfillment ratio (S/D fulfillment ratio) remains at about 70%.