Memory Card Shortages Expected Through 2026: AI Demand Is Driving Prices Higher Than Ever

1. 2026 NAND price tracker

NAND pricing can get confusing quickly because there is no single price that represents the entire market. TrendForce tracks different types of NAND, different sales channels and both contract and spot pricing. For this article, we are watching the indicators that are most useful for understanding pressure on memory-card supply.

In particular, MLC contract pricing gives us a useful view of the mature NAND market used in products such as memory cards and USB devices. We also watch 512Gb TLC wafer spot pricing as a separate signal for the broader flash market. The two can move differently, which is exactly why it is worth tracking both.

2. Why are memory card prices still elevated in 2026?

The easy explanation is that AI is using all the memory. The real story is more nuanced.

HBM, the high-bandwidth memory used in AI accelerators, is DRAM rather than NAND, so it is not literally the same chip that ends up inside an SD card. The connection is happening further upstream. Memory manufacturers are putting more investment and production attention into higher-value products such as HBM, advanced 3D NAND and enterprise SSDs, while older MLC production is shrinking.

TrendForce estimated in January that worldwide MLC NAND capacity would decline 41.7% year over year in 2026. Samsung's MLC end-of-life transition was a major part of that change, while other major suppliers had little incentive to add large amounts of new mature-node capacity. By July, TrendForce was still describing a significant shortage in the MLC market.

At the same time, AI inference, cloud infrastructure and enterprise storage have kept demand strong at the higher end of the market. TrendForce's July outlook expected overall NAND Flash contract prices to rise another 10–15% quarter over quarter in Q3, while also warning that consumer buyers were reaching their affordability limits.

That last point matters. A market can stay expensive without every price moving higher every week. By September, some TLC wafer spot pricing had started to ease even while mature NAND contract pricing remained elevated.

3. What does this mean for SD and microSD card prices in Canada?

This is where it is important not to read too much into a single NAND chart. SD and microSD cards are finished products. By the time a card reaches a Canadian retailer, its price reflects much more than the NAND inside it: the controller, packaging, product qualification, freight, distributor inventory, exchange rates, promotions and when that particular batch was purchased all matter too.

In other words, upstream NAND pricing is useful for understanding the direction of the market, but it cannot tell you exactly what a specific card will cost next Tuesday.

Different cards can also behave differently. A high-capacity microSD card may use a different NAND configuration and have completely different inventory conditions from a professional SD card. If you are deciding between capacities, our memory-card capacity guide can help you work out whether you really need 512GB or 1TB before paying for extra storage you may never use.

And if you are not sure which card your device supports, start with the Memory Card Finder or our Support & Compatibility Centre. Saving a few dollars does not help if the card you buy is too slow, unsupported or simply the wrong type for your device.

4. What we got right and wrong in our November 2025 forecast

When we first published this article on November 26, 2025, we were looking ahead. We now have most of 2026 behind us, so it is worth checking our original argument against what actually happened.

What we got right

• Memory pricing stayed under real pressure. TrendForce's 2026 contract data confirms that the market went through a major repricing cycle.
• Mature NAND supply became a real bottleneck. The decline in MLC production was not just a short-term inventory problem. It became a structural supply issue.
• AI and data-centre demand mattered. Enterprise SSD and cloud demand helped strengthen suppliers' pricing power and influenced where new investment and capacity were directed.

What we got wrong, or at least overstated

• We talked about the market as if it were one universal shortage. It is not. Mature MLC can be extremely tight while another NAND segment, such as TLC wafer spot pricing, moves down.
• We made the AI connection sound too direct. HBM is DRAM, not NAND. AI affects the memory-card market more indirectly through investment priorities, enterprise-storage demand and the shrinking supply of mature NAND.
• Our original “stock up now” message was too strong. Whether it makes sense to buy now depends on what you need, when you need it and how much flexibility you have.

We also removed one source from the original article. That source argued that the surge in storage pricing was likely temporary, while we had cited it beside a claim suggesting prices were unlikely to return to earlier levels. That was not a fair use of the source. This version relies on TrendForce for the market data and avoids pretending we know exactly where prices will go next.

5. Should you buy memory cards now or wait?

You do not need to panic-buy memory cards. You also do not need to assume that waiting will automatically get you a better price. A more useful question is: how much does timing matter for your purchase?

Buying now probably makes more sense if:

• You have a fixed production, deployment, school, security or field-work deadline.
• You need a particular model, speed class, endurance rating or capacity and cannot easily substitute another card.
• A stockout would cause more disruption or cost than a small future price drop would save.
• You are standardizing cards across a team and want everyone using the same approved media.

Waiting can make sense if:

• You do not need the card right away.
• You are flexible on brand, model or capacity.
• You are happy to wait for a promotion or a softer retail cycle.
• You are looking at a very large capacity mostly “just in case.” Our capacity guide may help you decide whether a smaller card already covers what you need.

6. What should Canadian businesses and bulk buyers do?

For businesses, schools, production teams, security installers and IT departments, the bigger problem is often availability rather than the last few dollars of unit price. If a rollout depends on having the same card across dozens or hundreds of devices, a sudden stockout can be far more disruptive than a small market-price change.

A practical approach is to standardize a short list of approved capacities and speed classes, then buy around actual deployment dates instead of reacting to every market headline.

If you are purchasing in volume, you can browse our bulk products collection or request a bulk quote for orders of 100+ units. You can also browse all memory cards, microSD cards and SD cards directly.

We use the TrendForce data on this page as an upstream market signal, not as a promise that Top Select pricing will move by the same amount or on the same schedule. We also intentionally do not publish our own historical acquisition costs or retail-price history here.

8. Sources and methodology

The market data in this article comes primarily from TrendForce. We use its public contract-price tables, spot-price tables and research summaries. We keep MLC contract pricing and TLC wafer spot pricing separate because they describe different parts of the NAND market and can move in different directions.

• TrendForce — NAND Flash Price Trends
• TrendForce — MLC NAND Flash Shifts to a Niche Market as Major Suppliers Exit (Jan. 7, 2026)
• TrendForce — AI Server Demand to Drive Memory Contract Price Increases in 2Q26 (Mar. 31, 2026)
• TrendForce — Structural Shortages to Keep Mature Memory Prices Rising in 2H26 (Jun. 16, 2026)
• TrendForce — AI Server Demand Continues to Support Memory Prices in 3Q26 (Jul. 3, 2026)
• TrendForce — MLC Migration and SLC NAND Pricing (Jul. 13, 2026)

Review cadence: We review this page monthly. Next scheduled review: October 2026.