Memory Prices Are Still Rising in 2026, Should You Buy Your Kingston Upgrade Now? · Florence Trading FZCO
If you've been putting off a RAM or SSD upgrade this year hoping prices would come back down, the latest data gives you a mixed answer: the increases are finally slowing, but they haven't stopped, and nobody in the industry is promising a return to 2025 pricing anytime soon.
How bad the NAND shortage actually got
Kingston sounded the alarm early. Cameron Crandall, the company's Datacenter SSD Business Manager, told press earlier this year that NAND flash prices had surged 246% since the first quarter of 2025, with roughly 70% of that entire increase landing in just a 60-day window. NAND typically makes up around 90% of an SSD's bill of materials, so Kingston had little room to absorb the hit and passed it straight through to buyers. The warning was blunt: if you need a drive, buy it now, because the price you see today is close to the best price you're going to get.
The hikes that followed
That warning played out almost exactly as described. In April 2026, Samsung and Kingston both notified distributors of unified SSD price increases of more than 10% across their lineups, pushing popular 1TB drives past the $330 mark. Kingston's own NV3 2TB M.2 NVMe, a mainstream upgrade drive, went from roughly $150 to around $380 over the same stretch, a jump of more than 150%. RAM followed the same curve, a 32GB DDR5 kit that cost $80-120 a year ago has been running $400-430 through the summer.
Q3 data: slowing down, not reversing
The most recent read on the market, based on TrendForce figures reported in early July 2026, shows DRAM contract prices rising a further 13-18% and NAND flash prices climbing 10-15% through the third quarter, a real deceleration compared to the roughly 60% jumps manufacturers were pushing through in Q2. That's the first genuine sign the panic-buying phase of the AI-driven memory crunch is cooling off. It is not, however, a sign that prices are dropping. Every forecast still points to memory costing more at the end of 2026 than it does right now, just by a smaller margin each quarter.
What this means if you're buying in the UAE
For anyone upgrading a desktop, laptop, or NAS in the UAE, the practical takeaway is the same one Kingston gave months ago: waiting rarely pays off in this market right now. Prices have gone up in every recent quarter, and the best case in the data currently available is a slower rate of increase, not a decrease. If a RAM or storage upgrade is already on your list for a build, a business machine, or a server refresh, locking in current pricing beats gambling on a correction that manufacturers themselves aren't forecasting.
Florence Trading stocks Kingston's current RAM and SSD lineup in AED, with UAE warranty support and fast delivery across Dubai and Abu Dhabi.