Team Group CEO warns memory shortage could leave cash unable to buy chips

Team Group CEO Chen Ching-wen said on the company’s November 2 earnings call that the memory chip shortage is expected to worsen from the end of 2026 through the end of 2027, with no downward trend in price.¹

Remarks quoted by BigGo Finance and carried in Tom’s Hardware — the sole outlet for this account — have Chen warning that some buyers could face a point where “even money can’t buy goods.”¹ That is the empty-parts-drawer problem in plain form: the bin is bare, and extra cash does not conjure a stick that is not there.

The spread between spot and contract prices runs 30% to 50%, so short-term supply costs far more than locked-in deals.¹

Chen said Team Group holds contracts yet still cannot secure enough volume and must pay a premium on the spot market to grab supply.¹ He estimated that supply and demand will not balance until the latter half of 2028, or perhaps later, and asked how prices can fall when nothing is left.¹

CXMT and YMTC have raised their market share to almost 10%, he noted, but most high-end DRAM (dynamic random-access memory) and NAND flash still come from Kioxia, Micron, Samsung, and SK hynix.¹ Prices on the Chinese chips still track the broader market, so they are not acting as a budget escape hatch. Chen expects budget component pricing will not ease until 2029, while high-end chips stay scarce.¹

Those estimates run against Acer CEO Jason Chen’s view that component pricing could reverse by the latter half of 2027.¹ Acer’s Chen has said only high-end parts such as LPDDR5X-9600 and Nvidia N1-series SoCs would remain short, while mainstream pieces ease; PCs would still see 5% to 20% hikes through the end of 2026, plateau in the first half of 2027, then fall.¹ He has also claimed major suppliers want to stretch the shortage story to protect margins.¹

Our read: Team Group is a buyer chasing volume in a tight channel, so its longer timeline and empty-shelf warning fit the spot-premium math it is already paying. Acer’s earlier relief path hangs on mainstream parts loosening first. Fresh fab output or a real drop in AI data-center demand would rewrite both calendars; neither shows up as settled fact in these calls.

On the bench: if you are buying or upgrading a PC this year, budget for DDR5 that already costs several times last year’s contract price, and treat any fair kit you can still source as a lock-in rather than a wait-and-see.

Footnotes

1. Tom’s Hardware, “Team Group CEO warns memory crisis could reach point where ‘even money can’t buy goods’ — will get worse next year, with ‘no downward trend in price whatsoever’”. Retrieved November 5, 2026. ↩ ↩² ↩³ ↩⁴ ↩⁵ ↩⁶ ↩⁷ ↩⁸ ↩⁹ ↩¹⁰