Acer CEO says memory makers are hyping 2030 shortage fears to protect margins — PC prices set to decline by late 2027, cheaper Chinese capacity coming online delivers lower memory prices

Acer chairperson and CEO Jason Chen is expecting that prices for components will start reversing in the latter half of next year. According to DigiTimes, Chen told reporters that only high-end DDR5 parts like LPDDR5X-9600 and niche CPUs like Nvidia's N1 and N1X chips are in short supply. Since supplier pricing lags consumer pricing by about a few months, he also added that PC prices will still rise between 5% and 20% towards the end of this year, plateau by the first half of 2027, before finally declining after years of AI-drive hikes.

The AI boom has driven shortages for various PC components, beginning with GPUs in late 2022, before expanding to memory chips by late 2025. This made memory prices climb 500% in 12 months, although the increases have seemingly cooled as consumers refuse to absorb further hikes. Some memory companies like SK hynix are saying that the shortage will be worse next year and that it won't be until 2030 before pricing will start to normalize. The Adata chief even said that the DRAM shortage would last another 10 years. This is plausibly true, especially as HBM demand from AI hyperscalers remains strong, and the various memory chip fabs under construction aren't expected to come online until the 2030s.

However, Chen disagreed with this take. He said that the major memory suppliers naturally want to keep their margins as high as possible for longer, so they keep putting out the message: let me tell you, prices won't come down until the year 20-whatever." The Acer chairperson argued that there's already ample memory and SSD supplies, while the purported CPU shortage is now limited to specific models. He also added that Chinese memory makers churning out cheaper alternatives would disrupt the market - something that SK Group Chairman Chey Tae-won feared. In fact, Acer, alongside HP and Asus, has started using CXMT chips in some of its products, while some Lenovo models sold in Germany were found to have YMTC SSDs.

Nevertheless, he says that price increases are becoming their own trend, saying that SSDs, PCBs, and fiberglass cloth used in motherboards are seeing their own hikes. A lot of people come and tell us they want to raise prices, and we find it a bit baffling - this needs to go up, too?" Chen said to the reporters.

The overall tenor from Chen is good news, though, if computer manufacturers could finally lower prices after years of shortages and expensive parts.