I have no opinion on what will happen, and know close to nothing about the memory industry but just to think out loud about how market turbulence could cause memory prices to increase:
- Suppliers that memory companies depend on JIT are entangled and go under, halting production or stalling capacity increases
- Downstream suppliers / distributors for not vertically integrated memory companies go under, and there is a shortage of finished product ready for consumer use even though there is an excess of memory chips
- Memory producers / fabs can’t handle the depressed demand and go under / have to halt production, alleviating the demand glut for the surviving suppliers, who have less competition. Coordinating a cartel becomes easier when there are fewer suppliers and becomes more desirable now that everyone realizes it’s a matter of survival.
There are also plenty of good reasons to think prices will go down if demand is depressed, but it does seem possible for prices to go up