Micron blinks first as Samsung plays it safe on memory price hikes

President Trump's tariffs went into effect today, upending supply chains across the globe, and causing headaches for multinational corporations that have diverse manufacturing bases and the bulk of their customers in the United States.

Tariffs will force these companies to implement price hikes for customers and US-based memory supplier Micron has already raised the price of its DRAM and SSD memory products. Samsung is also a major player in this market but it has avoided announcing a price increase so far.

Micron sent out a letter to its customers confirming a tariff surchage on finished DRAM modules and SSDs. The specific price increase varies by product type, but it's believed to be an at least 10% bump over the previous pricing.

While semiconductors have been exempted from the first phase of the tariff actions, with specialized rules to be announced later, the same exemption doesn't apply to finished products like DRAMs and SSDs. This means they could be hit with double-digit tariffs depending on their country of origin, such as 32% for Taiwan, 26% for India, 10% for Singapore, and a whopping 104% for China.

Samsung manufactues most of its memory products in South Korea which is subject to 25% tariffs. The rate is significant enough that it would have to pass that on to customers one way or the other. So far, it's likely that the company is waiting it out in the hopes that a deal can be struck between the two governments that eliminates tariffs.