Projections published in the period pointed to third-quarter contracts rising 20% to 30% for DRAM and 35% to 40% for NAND, following earlier estimates of further increases.
Contract percentages matter more than retail prices because they set costs for anyone assembling equipment, and they run through the whole chain within months: data centre budgets, laptop prices, phone manufacturing costs.
The cause is competition for capacity. High-bandwidth memory for AI uses lines that would otherwise serve general consumption, and allocation follows whoever pays more and signs bigger.
The effect appeared across the month, from phone silicon idle awaiting packaging to large buyers recording billion-dollar budget increases that are purely price.
The available short-term defence is the familiar one in a tight market: contract early, keep a qualified second source, and treat forecasts as a range rather than a number.