Micron Fully Withdraws From Mobile NAND Development, Storage Manufacturers Focus On High-End Products To Cope With The AI Wave

Micron Announces Complete Halt of Mobile NAND Development, Shifts Focus to High-Profit Storage Products

As the memory market structure continues to evolve, original manufacturers are adjusting their product strategies to respond to the growing divergence between “hot” and “cold” segments. Micron recently announced that it will globally cease the development of future mobile NAND products, including a complete halt to R&D on UFS 5 (Universal Flash Storage 5). According to the company, this decision is mainly due to the continued poor market performance of mobile NAND and a slowdown in growth momentum, while other NAND application scenarios offer more attractive prospects.

Micron emphasized that the discontinuation of mobile NAND development will not affect its investment in other NAND sectors. The company will continue focusing on NAND solutions for high-value end markets such as enterprise SSDs and automotive storage. At the same time, Micron will continue to strengthen its investment in mobile DRAM to maintain the integrity of its DRAM product line.

According to Micron’s latest financial report for the third quarter of fiscal year 2025 (March–May 2025), the company recorded revenue of $9.3 billion — up 15% quarter-over-quarter and 37% year-over-year. DRAM was the main growth driver, with revenue reaching $7.071 billion, accounting for 76% of total revenue. The HBM (High Bandwidth Memory) business also increased nearly 50% compared to the previous quarter. During the same period, NAND business revenue totaled $2.155 billion, a quarter-over-quarter increase of 16.2%, but still lagging behind DRAM performance.

It’s worth noting that mobile NAND is mainly used in smartphones, tablets, and other portable devices, including eMMC, UFS, mobile SSDs, flash cards, etc. In recent years, the growth of such products has been limited due to weak demand for consumer electronics, and they are no longer a primary focus for manufacturers.

Memory Industry Sees Stark Contrast: OEMs Shift to High-End Products While Some Markets Face Tight Supply

In recent years, the global memory market has presented a stark “cold vs. hot” contrast. Weak demand in consumer electronics has constrained the growth of traditional storage products, while the rise of AI applications has driven strong demand for high-performance and high-capacity memory products, becoming a key growth driver for memory manufacturers.

In response to these structural changes in the market, original manufacturers have been adjusting their product strategies to better allocate resources.

In the DRAM sector, OEMs are focusing on high-end products like DDR5 and HBM while gradually phasing out DDR4 production. For example, Micron announced a DDR4 phase-out plan in June 2025, with plans to reduce DDR4 shipments over 6–9 months before fully stopping production.

As OEMs scale back production, DDR4 supply has clearly tightened. While demand hasn’t plummeted, spot prices have risen sharply, and contract prices are expected to continue increasing in the second half of the year.

According to TrendForce’s latest report, the DDR4 market is expected to remain under-supplied in the second half of 2025, mainly due to stable demand from the server market. As a result, resources allocated to PCs and consumer electronics are being squeezed. PC OEMs are under pressure to accelerate DDR5 adoption, while consumer electronics manufacturers are facing the dual challenge of high prices and limited supply. Moreover, mobile DRAM prices are also rising amid tight supply: LPDDR4X prices in Q3 posted the largest single-quarter increase in the past 10 years.

In the NAND sector, manufacturers are also reallocating capacity toward higher-margin products. Benefiting from the AI boom, the enterprise SSD market continues to thrive. According to a TrendForce survey in July, shipments for platforms such as NVIDIA Blackwell remain strong, North American server demand is growing, and major clients in China continue to place sizable orders — a trend expected to continue into the second half of the year. Contract prices for enterprise SSDs are projected to increase by 5% to 10% in Q3.