The largest companies in the flash memory market, including Micron, Samsung and Western Digital, announced price increases for their products. The reasons are varied, but manufacturers attribute it in part to the earthquake in Taiwan. But if Micron’s production capacity is truly damaged, Samsung appears to be trying to extract more profits from the enterprise segment and increase demand for its AI technology.

The earthquake that occurred on April 3 was the most severe earthquake in the region in the last 25 years and caused a lot of destruction. Immediately following the disaster, Micron shut down most of its production in Taiwan. The most affected by this situation was the high-tech production of server DRAM; Consumer NAND for SSDs and flash drives has had better luck. Taiwanese media are reporting that Micron has increased prices by more than 20% in recent months, which has had little impact on the company’s supply of consumer products.

Samsung also announced price increases for enterprise SSDs, whose prices are likely to increase by 20-25% in the second quarter of 2024. Rumor has it that there is a shortage of enterprise SSDs in the market, which makes sense because they are probably used in artificial intelligence systems. However, the main component of AI computing remains graphics processors, and things are not so smooth there either. It looks like Samsung decided to take advantage of the SSD shortage in the market for AI systems and play on it. Since the company holds 40% of the enterprise SSD market, its pricing decisions affect the entire industry.

Western Digital did not stand aside and announced price increases for HDDs and flash drives, citing supply disruptions.