As of March 18, 2026, the global semiconductor industry has been hit by a major breaking news: the labor union of Samsung Electronics has officially released the results of the strike vote, with over 93% of participating employees in favor of a strike. Nearly 90,000 union members have secured the legal right to strike, marking the imminent arrival of the largest labor dispute in Samsung’s history. If the strike goes ahead, prices of solid-state drives (SSDs), memory modules, AI core memory and other products are highly likely to see a new round of sharp increases. The memory market, already in a price hike cycle, is set to have its upward momentum further accelerated.
Key Details of the Strike
- Vote Results: Of the 89,000 eligible employees, 73.5% cast their votes, with 93.1% in favor of the strike, granting the union the legal right to take industrial action. The strike will cover more than 70% of Samsung’s employees in South Korea, with no exception for the semiconductor and electronics core businesses.
- Strike Timeline: If no progress is made in subsequent labor negotiations, a large-scale rally will be held at the Pyeongtaek Semiconductor Complex on April 23, followed by an 18-day nationwide strike from May 21 to June 7, which will directly target Samsung’s world’s largest semiconductor production base – the Pyeongtaek plant.
- Core Demands: The union is demanding a 7% salary increase, a figure far higher than the 4.5% proposed by the management. It is also calling for the removal of the cap on performance bonuses and greater transparency in the bonus system. There are currently no signs of the two sides resuming negotiations, making the likelihood of the strike taking place extremely high.
- Core Impact on Production Capacity: The Pyeongtaek plant accounts for more than 70% of Samsung’s high-end memory production capacity, including High Bandwidth Memory (HBM), DDR5 memory, and advanced-process Vertical NAND (V-NAND) flash memory – the core chip of SSDs. Once the strike commences, nearly half of the production capacity at this park will be directly halted, which is highly likely to trigger panic-driven price hikes in the global memory market.
Samsung’s Strike Set to Roil the Global Memory Market
In terms of market share, Samsung has long held the top position in the global memory market: it commands over 36% of the DRAM memory market, nearly 33% of the NAND flash memory market (the core of SSDs), and close to 30% of the HBM high-end memory market, a critical component for AI applications. Together with SK Hynix, Samsung monopolizes more than 90% of the global HBM production capacity and nearly 70% of the DRAM production capacity. The majority of consumer-grade SSDs, desktop/laptop memory modules, and server memory chips available globally rely on Samsung’s production supply.
More crucially, semiconductor fabrication lines differ from ordinary factory production lines – wafer fabrication lines cannot be shut down at will. Even a short shutdown or staff shortage will result in the scrappage of entire batches of in-process wafers. Resuming production later also requires re-calibrating equipment and replenishing raw materials, meaning the actual production capacity loss will far exceed the theoretical 50%, and the supply shortfall will be further amplified.
Price Impacts on Three Major Memory Product Categories
Combined with the current trend of spot prices in the channel and the supply and demand dynamics of the industrial chain, a new round of price hikes is almost inevitable if the strike proceeds as scheduled, with different types of memory devices expected to be affected to varying degrees. The following is a forecast of price movements for different products:
SSDs: Across-the-board Hikes in the Consumer Segment, Steeper Increases for High-end Models
The core of an SSD is the NAND flash memory chip. As the world’s largest NAND flash memory manufacturer, Samsung’s Pyeongtaek plant is also the core production base for advanced-process flash memory, and the supply shortfall caused by the strike will quickly pass through to the consumer segment. Spot prices in the channel have already shown unusual volatility, with prices of entry-level SATA SSDs and mainstream PCIe 3.0/4.0 SSDs having risen by 10%-15%. If the strike takes place, the price of mainstream consumer-grade SSDs is likely to jump by 15%-20%, and the increase for high-end PCIe 5.0 SSDs may exceed 20%-30%.
Enterprise-grade SSDs will be even more severely impacted. Global demand for data center equipment remains robust, and enterprise-grade SSDs are already in a state of tight supply-demand balance. After Samsung’s production halt, the supply shortfall may reach 25%, and price hikes will far outpace those of consumer-grade products. This will in turn pass through to cloud computing and server terminals, indirectly driving up the usage costs of digital products.
DRAM Memory Modules: 30%+ Hikes Expected for Desktop/Laptop Memory
Memory module prices have risen for multiple consecutive rounds, with spot prices of DDR4 and DDR5 continuing to climb, and the strike will further exacerbate the supply shortage. Samsung’s Pyeongtaek plant accounts for over 40% of the global high-end DRAM production capacity, and global DRAM inventories are only sufficient to meet demand for 4-6 weeks. Once the strike starts, prices of DDR4/DDR5 memory chips are expected to rise by another 20%-30%, with the price increase for end-market retail memory modules likely to surpass 30% in tandem. Shortages and price hikes will become the norm, especially for mainstream capacities of 16GB and 32GB, significantly driving up the cost of computer assembly and upgrades.
HBM High-end Memory: A Core Necessity for AI, Prices Could Double
HBM is the core memory component for current AI servers and high-end computing power devices, and global production capacity is already extremely tight. Samsung’s Pyeongtaek plant is the world’s only mass production base for HBM4, with its entire production capacity pre-booked in advance by major AI players such as NVIDIA and AMD. If the strike commences, global HBM supply will drop by more than 30%, and the price increase is highly likely to exceed 50%, or even double. While such products have little direct relevance to ordinary consumers, the supply crunch will drive up the R&D costs of AI computing power and digital products, which will ultimately be passed on to the consumer segment.
Limited Alternative Capacity to Fill the Supply Gap Amid Price Surges
Although SK Hynix has sufficient DRAM and HBM production capacity, its own lines are already operating at full capacity and cannot expand production quickly to fill the gap left by Samsung. Micron Technology lags behind in both production capacity and technology, with its expansion speed failing to keep pace with market demand. Chinese memory chip manufacturers are making steady progress, but their combined market share is less than 5%, with obvious gaps in technology and production capacity, meaning they cannot form an effective alternative in the short term. This indicates that the global memory market’s supply shortfall can only be balanced by price hikes to curb demand, and there will be no price decline due to capacity supplementation by other manufacturers.
