Sandisk stock: The strongest and most talked about segment of the US stock market over the past year has been a traditional segment of the technology industry – storage and memory. The sector which was considered ‘old tech’ for a long time has now emerged as a new growth story.
Sandisk becomes the star of S&P 500
Sandisk has performed tremendously in environments with memory and storage shortages. It was the top performing stock of the S&P 500 in 2025. So far in 2026, it has increased by about 48 percent.
Western Digital bought Sandisk in 2016 for $16 billion. It was spun off as a separate company in February 2025. At the time of the spin-off, Sandisk shares were listed at $38.50. The company’s valuation was $5.6 billion, which was about 65 percent less than the original acquisition price.
But, in just ten months, Sandisk’s market cap increased to nearly $40 billion. An investor who had invested Rs 1 lakh in Sandisk at the time of the spin-off would have owned a value of around Rs 9 lakh today.
Phone prices increase due to memory storage
There has been a worldwide shortage of memory (RAM, DRAM) and storage (NAND) chips in the last few months. Because the demand for these components for AI data centers and high-end machines has increased more than the supply. Due to this, the prices of DRAM and NAND have increased rapidly and the supply has become tight. Due to this, smartphone manufacturers have to buy essential memory and storage parts at expensive prices.
For companies, the increase in the cost of these components has a direct impact on the total production cost of the device. This additional cost is being transferred to consumers in the form of increase in the prices of phones and laptops. For this reason, smartphone prices are seen increasing in 2026. Many companies have increased the prices of old models along with new ones.
Memory prices continue to rise
According to Bank of America analysts, Sandisk and other storage-centric companies are the biggest beneficiaries of the growing use of AI inference and edge AI. Companies are now storing more data than ever for AI training, data analytics, and regulatory compliance. Its impact is clearly visible in many applications like drones, surveillance systems, vehicles and sports technology.
Memory prices are continuously climbing. According to the report of Korea Economic Daily, Samsung Electronics and SK Hynix are preparing to increase the prices of server DRAM in the first quarter by 60 to 70 percent compared to the previous quarter.
Lack of memory for the first time in three decades
Industry research firm IDC has described the current situation as ‘memory shortage crisis’. According to IDC, this is the first time in three decades that DRAM, NAND and hard disk drives – all three are facing supply shortage simultaneously. NAND wafer prices jumped 60 percent in November alone. Contract prices have doubled since July, suppliers are fully booked till 2026 and talks are going on for allotment for 2027.
Samsung has increased the prices of flash memory by about 60 percent since September. Micron has already sold almost all of its high-bandwidth memory by 2026. TrendForce estimates that memory demand will grow by 20-22 percent in 2026. At the same time, supply growth will remain only 15-17 percent.
Sandisk surges due to Nvidia CEO’s statement
Sandisk shares jumped 28 percent on January 6, the biggest one-day gain since February. The surge came as Nvidia CEO Jensen Huang stressed the importance of memory and storage at the CES tech conference.
‘Storage is a completely untapped market today,’ Huang said. He also said that it can become the world’s largest storage market because of the working memory of AI systems.
Storage theme may remain strong in future also
According to Bloomberg Intelligence analysts, tight supply, rising prices and increasing demand for AI training and inference are working together to support digital storage stocks. Sandisk has increased its NAND market share by 2 percent in the last 12 months. At the same time, the share of companies like Samsung, SK Hynix and Kioxia has decreased.
Why was the memory sector being ignored?
The pace of innovation in the memory sector seemed slow, this sector was considered to have boom-bust cycles and low margins. Investors’ focus was on more glamorous tech like software, internet and consumer apps. Being hardware, it was considered a backend infrastructure, not a growth engine, while in the early stages of cloud there was also an assumption that storage needs would be limited. With the increasing demand for AI and data, this thinking has completely changed.
What is NAND market
NAND is a type of flash memory in which data remains safe for a long time, even if the device is turned off. This is called storage memory and is used extensively in mobile phones, laptops, SSDs, pen drives, memory cards, data centers and AI systems. When digital data increases, use of cloud and AI increases, the demand for NAND chips also increases in the same proportion.
Why is NAND market in discussion?
Due to the increasing needs of AI, cloud computing and data storage, supply is currently tight in the NAND market and prices are continuously going up. Companies are already booked for the coming years, which is why memory companies like Sandisk, Samsung, SK Hynix and Micron remain in the focus of investors.
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