Micron’s long deals could keep PC RAM expensive

Micron Technology reported 16 long-term strategic customer agreements that fix floor and ceiling prices for memory products for five-year terms and warned constrained supply could keep PC RAM prices high for years.

The company disclosed the agreements in its latest quarterly earnings report. Micron, based in Boise, Idaho, reported record revenue and profit for the quarter and said a significant portion of future output is now allocated to those long-term customers.

Micron has moved away from consumer-branded sales and closed its Crucial unit, directing more production to data centers and enterprise buyers covered by the agreements. Industry analysts say those contracts can reduce the volume of chips available to PC makers and retail channels.

Micron is one of three major global suppliers of DRAM and NAND memory, alongside Samsung and SK Hynix. Samsung remains the largest producer of PC RAM, solid-state drives and graphics memory.

“Our customers are recognizing that supply shortages in memory and storage will take considerable time to improve,” Micron chief executive Sanjay Mehrotra told investors. He added that the company expects industry supply to improve gradually in 2028 but does not have clear visibility on when supply will meet rising demand.

The company is expanding capacity with new fabs and manufacturing improvements, and it described supply as “structurally constrained in its growth and ability to meet industry demand” despite efforts to increase output.

How prices and availability change will depend on when new fabs begin production, whether yields and output per wafer rise, and the pace of demand from artificial intelligence systems and data centers. Changes in AI deployment, such as more local processing rather than large cloud workloads, could alter future memory demand patterns.

For PC builders and consumers, the near-term effect may include narrower product choices and higher prices for higher-performance RAM modules. Because the agreements set minimum prices for covered volumes, some memory that might otherwise enter retail channels could be priced and reserved under enterprise contracts for several years, affecting the broader market for desktop and laptop memory.