Performance skyrockets 10x, industry leader valuation still on the floor? Samsung says: storage shortage until 2028!

Why are over 10 billion yuan of funds and institutions teaming up to choose storage chips? [Taoguba]
Many people haven’t understood the behind-the-scenes reasons, let alone dare to act!
And after today’s market surge, everyone is kicking themselves!

We reminded everyone to stay alert and think last week! Today, we are once again deepening our reflection: why do we repeatedly focus on storage chips for swing trading?

1. Core driving factors behind this round of storage chip explosion (6 key logical reasons)

1. Accelerated price hikes in March: prices have entered a “main upward wave”
   DRAM: Q1 contract prices increased by 90%–95% month-on-month; mainstream DDR4 8Gb soared from a low of $3.2 in 2025 to $15, a total increase of +369%
   NAND Flash: Q1 month-on-month increase of 55%–60%; Samsung directly quoted +100% to Apple for LPDDR5X, which Apple accepted
   Latest in March: spot and contract prices continue to jump, multiple price adjustments within a month, turning expectations into reality
2. Samsung’s stance: supply gap until 2028, rigid lock-in

Samsung clearly states: memory shortage will only end in 2028, with extremely conservative capacity planning
The three major manufacturers (Samsung/SK Hynix/Micron) have inventory only for 3–5 weeks, historically very low; by 2026, no customer will be able to fully secure supplies
Expansion cycle: new wafer fabs take 1.5–2 years; cleanroom construction takes 8–12 months; no significant new capacity before the end of 2027
3. Benchmark in the US stock market: storage giants continue to hit new highs, global capital consensus
Micron: HBM capacity sold out by 2026, TAM reaches $100 billion by 2028; Q3 2023 earnings likely to beat expectations
SanDisk: up 216.10% in the past 3 months, stock price $661.62, hitting a record high
Western Digital: net profit of $1.182 billion in the first quarter of FY2026, strong cash flow
→ Overseas funds confirm with real money: storage is the most certain mainline in the AI era

4. Performance gap: A-shares storage enters “performance explosion period”
   Baiwei Storage: net profit of 1.5–1.8 billion yuan in Jan–Feb 2026, up 921%–1086% YoY; earned twice the full-year profit of 2025 in 2 months
   Demingli/Jiangbolong: Q1 performance forecast shows high growth, revenue/profit both surged YoY and QoQ
   Domestic manufacturers: Q1 results collectively exceeded expectations, price hike benefits fully realized
   Forming a domestic closed loop of “design (Zhaoyi/Morain) + manufacturing (Hua Hong) + packaging/testing (Baiwei/Jiangbolong)”
5. Going public: valuation anchor + accelerated domestic substitution
   Valuation exceeds 100 billion yuan, going public will reshape the valuation system of storage in A-shares
   Entering Apple’s supply chain, domestic storage shifts from “usable” to “high-quality,” with market share rapidly increasing

2. Can price hikes continue? (2026–2027 high prosperity year-round, 3 core points)

1. Demand side: AI “storage revolution,” token explosion + computing power needs
   China’s token daily calls surpass the US, reaching 4.16 trillion TOKE N! AI inference/training exponentially increases storage demand; AI server storage needs = 8–10 times that of ordinary servers
   Trend of replacing computation with storage: KVCache, RAG technology turn storage from a “cost item” into a strategic core
   Downstream recovery: mobile phones/PCs/AIoT/data centers resonate, global storage output value +134% to $551.6 billion in 2026

2. Supply side: capacity siphoned by HBM, conventional storage increasingly scarce
   Over 90% of new capacity from the three major manufacturers is allocated to HBM; traditional DRAM/NAND capacity not only does not increase but decreases (DRAM capacity down 3% YoY in 2026)
   Samsung, SK Hynix, Micron hold 95% market share, with high tacit understanding to control production and maintain prices, avoiding blind expansion and price wars.
   Capex remains conservative: 2026 DRAM capex +14%, NAND +5%, all for technological upgrades, not expansion
   Cleanroom and yield bottlenecks: slow HBM yield ramp-up, long construction cycles, almost zero supply elasticity
   Expansion lag: wafer fab construction takes 1.5–2 years; announced in 2024, effective by late 2025, creating a temporal vacuum in between.
3. Rigid gap: no solution before 2028, price hike cycle extended

Samsung/Micron/SK Hynix agree: shortages will last at least until 2028
Supply-demand gap continues to widen in 2026–2027, with OEMs holding absolute pricing power
Historical comparison: last storage cycle saw price increases over 8–9 quarters; this cycle driven by AI + domestic substitution, with longer duration and greater elasticity

3. Impact of core driving factors: valuation revaluation + market explosion (4-level transmission)

1. Industry value: upgraded from “cyclical product” to “AI core asset”
   Storage shifts from “computing power sidekick” to AI infrastructure core, valuation system reconstruction (PE from 20–30X to 50–100X)
   Global storage market +134% in 2026, +53% in 2027, entering a once-in-a-decade super cycle
2. Domestic substitution: overseas giants “voluntarily yield,” a golden 3–5 year period

Samsung/Micron focus on North American CSP, HBM, AI servers, withdrawing from consumer electronics/mid-low-end markets
The hundreds-of-billions market they cede is quickly filled by Zhaoyi/Morain/Jiangbolong/Baiwei and others
Domestic storage market share from 5% to over 20%, with both performance and share rising
3. Performance explosion: price hikes + share increase, “Davis double hit”
Module manufacturers: low-cost inventory + high-price shipments maximize profit margins (Baiwei net profit in Jan–Feb +10x)
Chip manufacturers: price hikes + domestic substitution, revenue and gross profit grow simultaneously (Zhaoyi/Junzheng Q1 earnings beat expectations)
Entire industry chain: design → manufacturing → packaging/testing → module performance resonance, A-shares storage enters “main performance rise”
4. Capital consensus: the only “certainty” in the tech mainline, market continues to explode
March tech sector divergence, storage becomes a “safe haven” for funds (Baiwei/Demingli hitting new highs)
Catalytic events: Micron earnings (3.18), Samsung Q2 price hikes, Nvidia GTC, Huawei storage new products, domestic Q1 earnings wave
Market level: from thematic speculation → performance-driven → main rise, throughout 2026

4. Why did funds choose storage in March?

March to April is the traditional “decision month” in A-shares, a period of intensive annual and Q1 earnings forecasts, where funds dislike pure concepts and prefer hard tech with performance support.

1. Storage vs. other tech sub-sectors comparison:

2. Tech sector “retreat period,” storage is the only “high prosperity + high certainty” mainline
   AI/computing/semiconductors and other sub-sectors retraced and diverged in March; storage’s supply-demand gap + performance realization + price hikes are the most certain
   Funds shift from “high volatility themes” to “performance + prosperity” double confirmation in storage
3. Baiwei Storage: module leader + AI edge + performance gap, maximum flexibility
   Performance explosion: net profit of 1–2 billion yuan in Jan–Feb, up 921%–1086% YoY; in 2 months, double the full-year 2025 profit
   AI edge positioning: ePOP entering Meta/Thunderbird/Google, AI glasses storage leader, volume in 2026
   Module + packaging/testing integration: benefiting from price hikes + domestic substitution, profit elasticity ranks first in the industry

5. Related companies:

Summary: Storage is in the super cycle of AI + supply-demand gap + domestic substitution, a golden 3–5 year period with triple resonance, making it the most certain and most elastic mainline in the 2026 tech sector.
Price hikes will last until late 2027, and the gap will only ease in 2028!
But after reading this, do you understand why funds and institutions dare to chase high at 2.2 billion yuan? Why they see it as a low point while you hesitate? Why do they think it’s a bottom and even a high point? Where will future value go? Who is the leader, and who is more valuable to find?
Baiwei has exploded, but there is still a leader! Still at a low level, not reaching new highs! And it’s the world’s No. 1 in NOR Flash; DRAM will ramp up in 2026! It’s also the only company holding more than 1% of storage shares!
If you don’t know: Like + share + comment: Performance surges 10x, leading stocks still at rock bottom? Samsung says: Storage shortage until 2028!