Micron makes Crucial decision: Farewell

So long and thanks for all the flash. Micron is walking away from its Crucial-branded consumer SSD business to concentrate on its mainstream memory and SSD operations.

Micron’s Crucial business unit supplies memory and SSDs to consumers through e-tailers and retailers with distributors in its channel as well. The rocketing demand for GPU-driven AI servers with their costly high-bandwidth memory (HBM) as well as host-x86 CPUs DRAM, has sent DRAM and HBM prices sky-high. It has encouraged memory fabbers to devote more and more manufacturing capacity to making HBM and the latest node DRAM, meaning there is much less output available for the consumer market.

EVP and Chief Business Officer Sumit Sadana said: “The AI-driven growth in the data center has led to a surge in demand for memory and storage. Micron has made the difficult decision to exit the Crucial consumer business in order to improve supply and support for our larger, strategic customers in faster-growing segments.”

DRAM and HBM is typically sold direct to large buyers whereas the consumer market has a 2-stage channel with distributors and retailers/e-tailers, which restricts the proportion of the selling price going to the manufacturer. Memory suppliers like SK hynix and Micron have been saying that their HBM output is sold out for the whole of next year. They are reaching the limits of how much they can increase capacity in their existing clean-room manufacturing sites and it will be 2-5 years before new clean-room fabs can be built and come on stream.

SK hynix reportedly plans to raise 1c node DRAM production by 7x by the end of 2026, from the current 20,000 units/month to 140,000.

Research house TrendForce predicts that conventional DRAM contract prices will rise by 45–50 percent QoQ, and total contract prices (including DRAM and HBM) will increase by 50–55 percent. Looking at smartphone memory, it said: “Contract prices for DRAM in the fourth quarter are expected to grow by more than 75% YoY, and given that memory usually makes up 10–15% of the total BOM cost, this has led to an overall unit cost increase of about 8–10% in 2025.”

One manufacturing tactic is to convert old-node DRAM fabs to make newer and denser DRAM, and that restricts the supply of older types of DRAM sold via the consumer channel. Also, as TrendForce reports, rising memory prices have significantly increased BOM costs in consumer electronics, leading brands to hike retail prices and dampening market demand.

NAND prices are also rocketing up because demand is much higher than supply, with fab capacity similarly constrained. This is helped by disk drive supply being constrained by manufacturing output limitations, with buyers opting for SSDs instead. A trendForce report said: “The ongoing expansion of AI infrastructure by CSPs fueled strong demand for enterprise SSDs in 3Q25” and “the rising proportion of enterprise SSD shipments contributed to increased ASPs among suppliers.” As a result: “total NAND Flash prices will rise by 20–25 percent.”

Sandisk is in talks with Taiwan’s Powerchip Semiconductor (PSMC) to manufacture its NAND Flash memory chips because its own fabs are maxed out.

All-in-all Micron is looking at extreme HBM and RAM demand from its enterprise customers with little ability to increase output, and cross-supplier price rises. It’s also seeing high and rising enterprise SSD demand sending prices up as well. That make manufacturing and selling consumer memory and NAND products less attractive.

In its latest quarterly results, Micron’s Cloud Memory business unit (BU) saw revenues rise 257 percent Y/Y to $4.5 billion. The CoreData BU recorded a 45 percent rise to $1.6 billion. Its auto and embedded BU was relatively challenged with a 3 percent rise to $1.4 billion. The Mobile and Client BU, which supplies memory and NAND products for PCs, graphics, smartphones, and other mobile devices, and includes the Crucial division, saw a mere 2 percent rise to a larger $3.8 billion amount. Micron does not publicly reveal the Crucial contribution to this number.

Micron says that, “by concentrating on core enterprise and commercial segments, Micron aims to improve long-term business performance and create value for strategic customers as well as stakeholders.” Consumer customers are simply not strategic.

It will stop shipping Crucial products to its channel at the end of February next year and will offer its Crucial staff: “redeployment opportunities into existing open positions within the company.”

Amongst its competitors, Samsung makes and sells consumer memory products and SK hynix has older DDR4 and DDR3 and other DRAM products available. They’ll pick up business from Micron’s consumer market exit. Neither SK hynix nor its Solidigm subsidiary sell branded consumer flash products, and neither does Kioxia. Both Sandisk and Samsung sell consumer NAND, as does disk drive maker Seagate with its La Cie brand. They will be happy to pick up Crucial channel business.

Third-party branded consumer SSD suppliers like Kingston, and also Seagate, will have one less chip-supplying source and that may make their costs to go up, and cause them to question their suppliers about their commitment to the consumer SSD business.

Consumer DRAM suppliers such as Samsung and SK hynix, plus Nanya and Winbond, will now see Micron’s consumer manufacturing capacity exiting the market, giving them more room for their products. As Samsung and SK hynix are serious enterprise DRAM suppliers, they will be facing similar pressures to Micron, encouraging them to focus more on the enterprise DRAM and GPU HBM/GDDR markets as well.