Comment by MotiBanana

I ChatGPT'd your claim, from recent years it seems correct.

Here's some basic analysis it did (AI, so take with grain of salt): https://shottr.cc/s/2zv5/SCR-20251127-fm6p.png

2016–2018 price spike

DRAM prices nearly tripled.

Driven by smartphone demand + server build-out + constrained supply expansion.

Resulted in the 2018 antitrust lawsuit accusing Samsung, Micron, SK hynix of coordinated output limits.

2019 oversupply crash

After the spike, memory makers over-invested capacity.

Demand softened; inventories built up.

Prices fell sharply — ~35–40% decline.

2020 mild recovery

COVID WFH / remote boom → PC sales up → DRAM demand rose slightly.

Prices recovered modestly.

2021 rebound

Data-center and cloud expansion returned.

DDR5 ramping begins.

Market in recovery — but not frothy.

2022–2023 bottom

Smartphone shipments declined globally.

PC demand dropped post-COVID.

OEMs had too much inventory → massive price declines.

Some DRAM sold below production cost.

2024–2025 AI/HBM super-cycle

AI training systems (NVIDIA, AMD, etc.) require large HBM arrays.

Fab capacity reallocated from commodity DRAM → HBM.

AI hyperscalers (OpenAI, Microsoft, Meta, Tesla) created enormous DRAM draw.

Commodity DRAM restricted → price spike ≥170% YoY.