On July 16, Biwin Storage released its H1 2026 performance forecast, projecting an operating revenue of 15 billion to 16 billion yuan for the first half of 2026, a year-on-year increase of 283% to 308%; net profit attributable to shareholders of the parent company is expected to reach 7 billion to 7.5 billion yuan, a year-on-year surge of 3200% to 3421%.
On the same day, DapuStor also announced its H1 2026 performance forecast, with an estimated operating revenue of 4.3 billion to 4.8 billion yuan for the first half of 2026, up 474% to 543% year-on-year; net profit attributable to shareholders of the parent company is projected at 1.2 billion to 1.35 billion yuan, representing a year-on-year increase of 439% to 482%.
Since the beginning of this month, multiple memory manufacturers have released their H1 performance reports. A summary is as follows:
The explosive performance of memory manufacturers is primarily driven by the substantial surge in product prices. According to ComputerBase's tracking of retail prices for memory, HDDs, and SSDs since September 2025, as of mid-June 2026, using September last year as the baseline:
- The average price of DDR5 memory has cumulatively increased by 288%. The price of mainstream 32GB DDR5 has nearly quadrupled the baseline, making it the category with the highest increase in this cycle
- The price increase for HDD mechanical hard drives exceeded 100%, reaching 107%, effectively doubling the price compared to the baseline
- The average price of 1TB NVMe SSDs rose by 112%, with the Kingston NV3 1TB climbing from 50 euros last September to nearly 140 euros
More importantly, industry forecasts indicate that the memory shortage will last at least until the end of 2027, and no signals of price drops have emerged yet.
The 'Magic' of Module Manufacturers: Low-Cost Inventory Meets High-Price Sales
Operating in the same price hike cycle, why is the performance elasticity of module manufacturers even stronger than that of original manufacturers? The answer lies in their inventory accounts.
Taking Longsys as an example, the company's inventory grew from 11.678 billion yuan at the end of 2025 to 17.96 billion yuan by the end of Q1 2026. This indicates that around the low point of memory prices in Q4 last year, domestic module manufacturers generally engaged in large-scale stockpiling at low prices. When spot prices surged in the first half of this year, these previously low-cost inventories were sequentially processed into finished goods and delivered, creating a price-cost spread characterized by a 'low-cost base plus high-price sales realization.'
This also explains why Longsys's net profit attributable to shareholders surged from 14.766 million yuan in the same period last year to 9.2 billion to 11 billion yuan in the first half of this year, and why Biwin Storage leaped from a loss of 226 million yuan to a profit of 7 billion to 7.5 billion yuan. Module manufacturers can maximize the profit margin per unit of inventory through high-speed turnover during a price hike cycle.
However, it is crucial to remain vigilant: once memory prices plateau, the existing price-cost spread of 'high selling price minus low-cost inventory' will passively shrink, which will then put the profits of module manufacturers to the test.
Memory Industry: How Will the Future Unfold
Multiple companies have coincidentally mentioned the 'explosion of AI computing power and the high-prosperity cycle of the memory industry' in their performance forecasts. How will this high prosperity unfold in the future?
Sustainability of the Shortage and the Pace of Capacity Expansion. SEMI data shows that global semiconductor manufacturing equipment sales are projected to reach $165.9 billion in 2026, a year-on-year increase of 23.2%, and are expected to surge to $229.5 billion by 2028, indicating that wafer fab capital expenditures are still accelerating.
However, it takes 12 to 18 months from equipment delivery to capacity release, meaning the true volume expansion of global memory capacity will not occur until the end of 2027. In the short term, the supply-demand gap is difficult to fill through new capacity additions, and with the sustained high growth of AI demand, the gap may even widen.
The Backlash Risk of C-end Users Being 'Deterred' by High Prices. SSDs are the only category among the three where prices have relatively stabilized this month. The core reason is that high prices have suppressed the upgrade and replacement demand of individual consumers, and the retail SSD market has nearly vanished. Morgan Stanley even predicts that smartphone and PC prices in the US will rise by 15% this year. When terminal price increases are passed on to consumers, it will deter consumer demand.
B-end Customers Will Enter a Game of Bargaining with Memory Manufacturers. B-end customers with massive procurement scales, such as cloud services and data centers, already hold sufficient bargaining chips. If memory prices continue to rise, it cannot be ruled out that large B-end customers will jointly push down prices, postpone non-essential procurement, or even adjust their supply chains to seek more cost-effective sources.