Kingston Reports 246% Rise in NAND Wafer Pricing

Kingston Technology has put a figure on how far NAND input costs have moved, with Datacenter SSD Business Manager Cameron Crandall reporting a 246% increase in NAND wafer pricing against the first quarter of 2025.

The number matters because Kingston sits where the shortage becomes visible to buyers. As a module and drive maker rather than a fab owner, it buys wafers on the same market that hyperscalers are competing in, and passes the result into channel pricing.

The wider picture supports the figure. Samsung raised NAND contract prices between 30% and 60% against September 2025 levels. In November 2025, contract prices for NAND wafers rose more than 60% month over month in some categories, with 512GB TLC among the steepest. Consumer SSD prices have doubled in some cases since late 2025, with 1TB drives moving from around $45 to close to $90.

Lead times have moved with prices. Larger DRAM orders have extended beyond 40 weeks, long enough to make many configurations unworkable inside a normal fiscal planning cycle. Enterprise buyers without multi year contracts are competing for residual allocation against hyperscalers who pay more and commit for longer.

Gartner has estimated that server costs rose more than 125% in the first half of 2026, which is forcing operators to revisit memory configurations, qualification schedules and procurement timing rather than simply absorbing the increase.

The practical consequence for smaller buyers is a loss of leverage, and a stronger case for parts on existing platforms against full system refresh.

Tech Seller USA supplies Kingston memory and SSDs, alongside server memory and enterprise SSDs with exact OEM part numbers.