Storage and Semiconductor Markets Boom Across Multiple Sectors, Industry Enters Prosperous Cycle
Early 2026 has seen the global semiconductor and storage markets booming on multiple fronts. Everything from the stock prices of original manufacturers to end products is showing strong growth momentum, and the industry’s prosperous cycle is continuing to deepen.
On the first trading day of January 2nd, Samsung Electronics and SK Hynix hit new stock price highs at the same time. Samsung Electronics closed above 120,000 won, surging 7.17%, while SK Hynix ended at 677,000 won, setting a new all-time closing record. By the 5th, both manufacturers climbed even higher—Samsung’s stock price broke through 130,000 won, and SK Hynix topped the 700,000 won mark. This rally is driven by the industry’s optimistic expectations for semiconductor prosperity in 2026. Back in December 2025, global semiconductor exports rose 22.2% year-on-year to 173.4 billion US dollars, hitting the best annual performance and pushing the KOSPI index above 4,400 points for the first time ever.
Module manufacturers are seeing explosive profit growth. Financial reports from ADATA and Team Group for November 2025 show that due to structural shortages in the storage market, both companies’ earnings per share (EPS) surged by more than ten times year-on-year. Specifically, ADATA’s EPS reached 4.05 yuan, a year-on-year increase of 1457.69%, and Team Group’s EPS was 3.70 yuan, up 1002.44% from the previous year. The stock-up wave driven by AI server demand and product structure upgrading are the core drivers behind the sharp profit growth of module manufacturers. The market expects demand to remain at a peak in the first half of 2026.
The NOR Flash market is experiencing a price hike. Affected by unbalanced production capacity allocation, NOR Flash prices are expected to rise by 30% to 100% in the first quarter of 2026. Since semiconductor capital expenditure is tilting towards HBM and DDR5 related to AI servers, production capacity of mature production lines needed in automotive and industrial control sectors has been squeezed. Meanwhile, NOR Flash production lines are concentrated and have little room for expansion. After inventory replenishment, supply and demand have quickly tightened, and manufacturers with mature production lines will continue to benefit.
On the end product front, innovation and high-end trends in storage hardware are quite obvious. Seagate’s 32TB IronWolf series mechanical hard drives were launched early in Tokyo’s Akihabara market, targeting the high-end NAS market, with an expected domestic price close to 8,000 yuan. At the same time, LPDDR6 memory will be officially commercialized this year, first appearing in high-end Android flagship phones. The 16GB version will cost over 100 US dollars and be supported by the Snapdragon 8 Elite Gen6 Pro processor. On the other hand, Apple’s iPhone 18 series will continue to use LPDDR5X, improving bandwidth through the 6-channel version.
From the new highs in original manufacturers’ stock prices to the sharp increase in module manufacturers’ profits, from the rise in storage chip prices to the upgrading of end products, the semiconductor and storage industry is fully benefiting from the explosion in AI demand, production capacity structure adjustment, and technological iteration. The industry’s prosperous trend is expected to continue deepening in 2026.