According to CLS (China Lianhe Securities), in November, SanDisk, the leading flash memory manufacturer... SanDisk has announced a significant price increase for NAND flash memory contracts, with a rise of up to 50%.
It is worth noting that this is at least the third time SanDisk has raised prices this year. After announcing a 10% price increase across its entire product line in April, it implemented a general 10% price increase across all channels and consumer products in early September.
Analysts point out that this move highlights the tight supply in the storage market, primarily driven by artificial intelligence. Data Center Driven by both sustained explosive demand and severe constraints on wafer supply.
On November 7th, SanDisk was reported to have lost money due to issues with its data center storage chips. Strong sales drove the stock price up more than 15%, closing at $239.48 per share, a new all-time high, with a total market capitalization of approximately $35.1 billion. Since the beginning of the year, the company's stock price has increased by more than 560%.
After the US stock market closed on November 6, SanDisk released its financial results for the first quarter of fiscal year 2026 (ending October 3). Benefiting from tight supply and rising prices in the memory chip market, the company's overall performance exceeded analysts' expectations, and its second-quarter forecast significantly surpassed market expectations.
Specifically, SanDisk reported first-quarter revenue of $2.31 billion, up 22.6% year-over-year and 21% quarter-over-quarter, exceeding analysts' expectations of $2.15 billion. GAAP net income was $112 million, down 47% year-over-year but up 587% quarter-over-quarter. GAAP earnings per share were $0.75, down 49% year-over-year but up 569% quarter-over-quarter.
During the earnings call, SanDisk executives stated that downstream contract orders are shifting from traditional quarterly submissions to long-term contracts spanning multiple quarters. Customers, seeking supply stability, have shared their demand forecasts for the entire year of 2027 with the company. Market demand for the company's NAND flash memory products exceeds supply capacity, and the company expects this situation to continue until 2026 and beyond. It is anticipated that in 2026, data centers will surpass mobile devices for the first time to become the largest source of demand for NAND flash memory, which will bring about a significant change in the NAND flash memory market.
The company expects second-quarter revenue to be between $2.55 billion and $2.65 billion, higher than analysts’ expectations of $2.36 billion.
As one of the world's few major flash memory chip manufacturers, SanDisk's latest price increase has sent shockwaves through the entire storage supply chain. Module manufacturers such as Transcend, Innodisk, and Apacer Technology have decided to suspend shipments and reassess their pricing.
On the DRAM side, news broke on November 3 that Samsung Electronics had taken the lead in suspending October DDR5 DRAM contract pricing, with the resumption of pricing expected to be delayed until mid-November, prompting other memory manufacturers such as SK Hynix and Micron to follow suit.
Several Wall Street analysts also quickly raised their target price for SanDisk. Among them was Citibank . Morgan Stanley has significantly raised its price target for SanDisk from $150 per share to $280 per share. Analyst Joseph Moore maintained his "overweight" rating on the stock and raised his price target from $230 per share to $263 per share.
(Article source: Jiemian News)
