TeamGroup CEO Chen Ching-wen, who also goes by Gerry Chen, made the remarks on the company's earnings call on November 2, 2026, not 2027 as one early write-up had it. He told the third-quarter call that "even money can't buy goods," and that supply and demand won't balance before the second half of 2028.
What Chen actually said
Several outlets agree on the core claims, and they are forecasts from a company executive rather than settled facts.
- Timing of the worst stretch: Fortune reports Chen said the most severe stretch will run through the end of the second quarter of 2027. Tom's Hardware phrases it as worsening from the end of 2026 until the end of 2027. The two outlets differ on where the crunch ends, so treat the endpoint as uncertain.
- Prices: He sees "no downward price trend whatsoever" next year and doesn't expect supply and demand to balance until the second half of 2028 at the earliest.
- Availability: For retail and channel buyers, TweakTown says the shortage could mean memory is unavailable even if they are willing to pay higher prices.
- The quote of the day: "How can prices fall when there's nothing left?"
A module maker with contracts, but not enough chips
TeamGroup doesn't fabricate DRAM chips. As Cryptobriefing puts it, module makers buy chips from the big producers and assemble them into the memory sticks and drives that end up in PCs, servers, and other devices. That makes Chen's sourcing problem a useful signal for PC buyers.
"We have contracts but can't get enough volume, so we have to go to the spot market and pay a premium to grab supply," he said, according to Tom's Hardware. He put the gap between spot and contract prices at 30% to 50%.
That shows contracts haven't guaranteed TeamGroup enough volume. It doesn't show that every seller is out of stock, or that every buyer will be shut out.
The numbers, and one that doesn't add up
- Chip prices: Contract prices for a 16-gigabit DDR5 chip rose from $8.70 in October 2025 to $48 in September 2026. That is roughly 5.5 times the starting figure, or about a 450% increase. Some outlets describe it as "more than 550%," which doesn't match those endpoints. I'd trust the endpoints.
- Chips aren't kits: These are chip contract prices. They don't convert directly or immediately into the shelf price of a retail DDR5 kit.
- TeamGroup's results: Record third-quarter revenue was NT$10.14 billion, up nearly 34% from the previous quarter. Net profit was NT$3.62 billion, and gross margin rose to 49.3% from 42.8%.
- Shift to business customers: Business-to-business sales made up 64.6% of revenue in the first three quarters of 2026, up from 24.6% a year earlier. Chen attributed the change to market demand rather than a strategic decision by the company.
One claim in the original coverage, a 50% quarterly jump in net profit, isn't supported by the reporting I could verify. I've left it out.
Why this reaches your PC
The mechanism is simple. Samsung, SK Hynix and Micron have shifted capacity toward the high-bandwidth memory used in AI chips, leaving less conventional memory for consumer devices, as Fortune reported earlier this year. AI servers also use DRAM and NAND, the same chip types that go into PCs, phones and cars. When data-center buyers bid aggressively, the PC market gets what's left.
For Windows users, that points to a few practical effects:
- Prebuilt PCs and laptops may get pricier, or ship with less memory at the same price. Fortune says consumers are likely to keep absorbing the cost either way.
- Upgrade plans such as moving from 16GB to 32GB or 64GB may cost more than you expect.
- Memory-hungry workloads like local AI, virtual machines and large dev environments get costlier to equip.
Other voices on the same outlook
SK Hynix. Reuters reported in July that CEO Kwak Noh-jung said the industry is heading for its worst-ever supply shortage in 2027. He added that customer demand is expected to stay above supply capacity even beyond 2030. Reuters also reported that UBS expects DRAM to stay undersupplied until at least the second quarter of 2028. That is broadly consistent with Chen's timeline, though it comes from a different kind of source.
Micron. The company said in its June 24 fiscal third-quarter earnings remarks that it had completed 16 strategic customer agreements. They cover data-center, consumer and automotive segments, and typically run five years through 2030. They represent about 20% of Micron's DRAM volume. The terms are not a blanket price shield: the largest agreements generally have a ceiling and a floor, while some smaller portions have fixed prices or no price bands. They also span consumer customers. That undercuts the claim that Micron has left the consumer market entirely, and the claim that the agreements simply protect customers from high prices.
A dissenting view. Tom's Hardware notes that these estimates run counter to Acer CEO Jason Chen's prediction that component pricing will reverse by the second half of 2027. It also reports Acer's Chen as arguing that suppliers want to hype the shortage to preserve their margins.
A dose of skepticism
Cryptobriefing makes a fair point: Team Group benefits from high prices, and a CEO forecasting scarcity is also describing a favorable selling environment. That doesn't make Chen wrong. SK Hynix and independent analysts point the same way. But shortage forecasts from sellers deserve the same caution as bullish forecasts from anyone with a stake.
Also note what the verified evidence doesn't cover. I could not confirm several claims in the original coverage:
- Apple iPhone 18 pricing and share moves.
- PS5 pricing.
- AMD's desktop priorities.
- CXMT's exact market share.
- Effects on motherboards and power supplies.
- Black Friday RAM deals.
What to do about it
The evidence doesn't support a blanket "buy RAM now" instruction. It supports a few steps:
- Buy for a real need. If a system is failing or a project needs the memory, compare current prices across retailers and buy compatible capacity. Check your motherboard's supported DDR generation first.
- Don't wait for 2024 prices. No cited forecast expects a near-term return to them.
- Without urgency, watch prices. Executive forecasts are uncertain, and a new plant like TeamGroup's, due to start production in the second quarter of 2027, could ease things at the margin.
- Budget conservatively for 2027 builds. If you plan a new PC, allow extra room for RAM and storage, or consider whether your current machine can last another year.
- Beware scalper pricing. If stock does tighten, third-party marketplace prices may drift well above normal retail.
Bottom line
TeamGroup's CEO is predicting no price relief in 2027, a worst stretch through mid-2027, and no balance until the second half of 2028 at best. SK Hynix's separate forecast for 2027 gives the warning weight. The chip-price figures are real, but they are contract prices, not what you'll pay for a kit. It's a good time to plan carefully, and a poor time to rely on a price crash.