Micron/Crucial leaving the consumer memory market place to focus solely on enterprise (AI/data center) memory sales.

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pqueue

Member
You think memory is high now... it is going to go through the roof next year. i am sure other memory makers are already looking to redirect large parts of their production solely to enterprise and not consumer.


Micron Technology, Inc. (Nasdaq: MU), a leader in innovative memory and storage solutions, today announced its decision to exit the Crucial consumer business, including the sale of Crucial consumer-branded products at key retailers, e-tailers and distributors worldwide.

Micron will continue Crucial consumer product shipments through the consumer channel until the end of fiscal Q2 (February 2026). The company will work closely with partners and customers through this transition and will provide continued warranty service and support for Crucial products. Micron will continue to support the sale of Micron-branded enterprise products to commercial channel customers globally.

"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," said Sumit Sadana, EVP and Chief Business Officer at Micron Technology. "Thanks to a passionate community of consumers, the Crucial brand has become synonymous with technical leadership, quality and reliability of leading-edge memory and storage products. We would like to thank our millions of customers, hundreds of partners and all of the Micron team members who have supported the Crucial journey for the last 29 years."
 
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pqueue said:
You think memory is high now... it is going to go through the roof next year.


Micron Technology, Inc. (Nasdaq: MU), a leader in innovative memory and storage solutions, today announced its decision to exit the Crucial consumer business, including the sale of Crucial consumer-branded products at key retailers, e-tailers and distributors worldwide.

Micron will continue Crucial consumer product shipments through the consumer channel until the end of fiscal Q2 (February 2026). The company will work closely with partners and customers through this transition and will provide continued warranty service and support for Crucial products. Micron will continue to support the sale of Micron-branded enterprise products to commercial channel customers globally.

"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," said Sumit Sadana, EVP and Chief Business Officer at Micron Technology. "Thanks to a passionate community of consumers, the Crucial brand has become synonymous with technical leadership, quality and reliability of leading-edge memory and storage products. We would like to thank our millions of customers, hundreds of partners and all of the Micron team members who have supported the Crucial journey for the last 29 years."
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We are doomed ( Until the AI bubble burst) 😭
 
Sanepar said:
They don't make memories, they just rebrand and sell, make no diff.
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yeah, no.

crucial is a subsidiary of Micron, and they use micron memory in a lot of their products.

further more, consider it this way. let us say (hypothetically) that crucial makes up 10% of the home market.

They are not going to free up their supply of chips used for the home market so that someone else can use it to make memory for the consumer market. . They are going to repurpose them into enterprise, decreasing the amount of available memory in the consumer market.
 
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I feel like this will be trend at this point. Micron could make a shit more money from these AI companies than they can for consumers. This shit ain't getting cheaper so....

Bip Buckle Up GIF by Bachelor in Paradise
 
Well, this is going to suck even more now. Next year will be crazy. I am also expecting next gen console launches to get pushed as well unless there are major changes by end of next year.
 
StereoVsn said:
"It was difficult decision for us when we realized we could make even more money than already absurd consumer prices! "
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I'm afraid this is just the beginning, and things will only get worse. Since many of the Giants which producing components for the PС market simply don't need the average consumer, they'd happily abandon this market if given the opportunity.
Too small profits compared to other industries, and too small consumption. Therefore, we are most likely moving towards the point where a PC for users will ultimately be just a workstation with a cloud service, whether someone likes it or not.
 
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Mayar said:
I'm afraid this is just the beginning, and things will only get worse. Since many of the Giants which producing components for the PС market simply don't need the average consumer, they'd happily abandon this market if given the opportunity.
Too small profits compared to other industries, and too small consumption. Therefore, we are most likely moving towards the point where a PC for users will ultimately be just a workstation with a cloud service, whether someone likes it or not.
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It's a hot take, but PC gamers are pretty terrible customers. They pirate games and are constantly looking for the cheapest option in an open market.

If there's no way to capture a customer on PC, then companies will just move on to where the money is.
 
Seiryu21 said:
It's a hot take, but PC gamers are pretty terrible customers. They pirate games and are constantly looking for the cheapest option in an open market.

If there's no way to capture a customer on PC, then companies will just move on to where the money is.
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and on the flip side there is the whole premium component enthusiast set that rushes out to buy the best as soon as it is available.

It goes both ways.
 
This bubble will burst one day, one way or another. Expecting those eaenings to go up "forever" just doesn't happen and when it does...oh boy it will be amazing. (just let me sell all my stock first lol)
 
Seiryu21 said:
It's a hot take, but PC gamers are pretty terrible customers. They pirate games and are constantly looking for the cheapest option in an open market.

If there's no way to capture a customer on PC, then companies will just move on to where the money is.
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Well, actually, we're already practically there. Because we already use digital stores and with Steam, for example, you don't buy a game but a license to play it, so you don't own it. We've already passed the point where users don't own the software. The next step is essentially transferring capacity from local PCs to data centers to ensure performance, and yes, that will take much longer. But we're slowly moving towards it. And then we will get closer to the formula, when we will no longer own either software or hardware.
 
Mayar said:
Well, actually, we're already practically there. Because we already use digital stores and with Steam, for example, you don't buy a game but a license to play it, so you don't own it. We've already passed the point where users don't own the software. The next step is essentially transferring capacity from local PCs to data centers to ensure performance, and yes, that will take much longer. But we're slowly moving towards it. And then we will get closer to the formula, when we will no longer own either software or hardware.
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Yeah we're definitely heading in that direction more and more. Regardless of how the ram thing turns out, nothing is going to improve on the consumer level because they want to force us to pay every step of the way.
 
Seiryu21 said:
It's a hot take, but PC gamers are pretty terrible customers. They pirate games and are constantly looking for the cheapest option in an open market.

If there's no way to capture a customer on PC, then companies will just move on to where the money is.
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I play on consoles but...Do we have data on this?
And even if PC gamers "pirate games" don't they need hardware to do that? lol

Why are we mixing software with hardware here?
 
pqueue said:
and on the flip side there is the whole premium component enthusiast set that rushes out to buy the best as soon as it is available.

It goes both ways.
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yeah but thats a small group.
even here, tons of people are using 1080p "by choice" (uh huh, sure, guys).
steam survey shows a majority of low/midrange hardware.

what's wild is so much industry and economies are basically all-in on Ai.
trillions being spent worldwide.
at this point, it almost needs to work out or everyone's gonna feel it.
 
pudel said:
Honestly, they could all say we just increase production...but they dont...they are just saying "no more consumer market". Thats really interesting, yep.
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all of the chip manufacturing fabs (e.g. TSMC) - for cpu, gpu, ram - are pretty much running at or near full capacity, with availability schedules stretching out 18+ months for some products.

they are trying to build new fabs, but fabs are expensive and take almost a decade each to build and get up to production.
 
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Tiago Rodrigues said:
I play on consoles but...Do we have data on this?
And even if PC gamers "pirate games" don't they need hardware to do that? lol

Why are we mixing software with hardware here?
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Do you need data to know that games are being pirated?

I was just making the point that if your options were to sell to a large corporation who can promise a steady stream of revenue or a consumer who is unreliable, you would choose the reliable option.

This thread isn't specifically about software but I just threw that in there to illustrate why this might become a trend for other things in the consumer PC space.
 
Seems like the industry is trying to box out consumer PCs right now for some reason.


It would be crazy if your best choice is to get a Steam Cube or XPC going forward 😳
 
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Hell they (the tech giants) are even cannibalizing themselves:

wccftech.com

Samsung Has Reportedly Rejected A DRAM Supply Request From Its Own Mobile Experience Division As It’s Focused On Maximizing Profitability

To maximize profitability, Samsung has had to make some hard choices, with one of them reportedly being rejecting a DRAM supply request from its own division
wccftech.com wccftech.com

Samsung Has Reportedly Rejected A DRAM Supply Request From Its Own [Samsung Galaxy Phone division] As It's Focused On Maximizing Profitability

As DRAM prices begin to soar, internal conflicts between two of Samsung's divisions have begun to materialize. The Korean giant's semiconductor arm, also known as DS, has reportedly refused to supply its Mobile Experience (MX) sector with more than a year's supply of DRAM chips for multiple Galaxy smartphones as it now aims to prioritize profitability over anything else.

Industry sources informed Sedaily that instead of a contract that ensures Samsung's MX division will receive a healthy supply of DRAM from DS for more than 12 months, a renegotiation of terms will likely come up every three months. This means that the company's smartphone division will have to request DRAM supplies on a quarterly basis due to rising memory prices. The report mentions that the situation has become so dire that Samsung's high-ranking executives had to intervene and negotiate accordingly.
 
onQ123 said:
Seems like the industry is trying to box out consumer PCs right now for reason.


It would be crazy if your best choice is to get a Steam Cube or XPC going forward 😳
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I mean in the end it only means we will see no technical progress in games anymore for the next time...because there is no tech anymore supporting it. Next playstation/xbox will be the default for quite some time. On the other hand it wouldnt have been different anyway.
 
Hudo said:
Don't celebrate too early: RAM used in consoles also falls under the consumer memory market.
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Everything is getting affected, but I imagine PC will be hit the hardest. About twice the total memory when compared to an equivalent console and nobody to subsidize at least part of the cost. It'll be a shitshow of epic proportions.
 
Skifi28 said:
Everything is getting affected, but I imagine PC will be hit the hardest. About twice the total memory when compared to an equivalent console and nobody to subsidize at least part of the cost. It'll be a shitshow of epic proportions.
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next gen consoles are rumored to be having an insane amount of RAM (24GB+)in them. at next year's estimated inflated prices that is going to be about $400 market price on its own. and that is just one of the components in your next gen console.
 
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Boo Who? said:
I don't understand why people keep saying PC gaming? Everything uses fucking RAM.
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Because with PC gaming you basically have the companies that don't give a fuck anymore about selling to the end users (nVidia and now RAM manufacturers)....and the end users :messenger_grinning_sweat:
The other option left is buying branded PCs that will be sold either with shitty specs or with outrageous prices with no fair middle ground.

You then have mega corporations like Apple, Sony and others that are not going to give up on reaching sales targets for their products (smartphones, consoles, etc) because their business is based on that, and although they will be impacted, that's inevitable, they are still really powerful customers ordering tens of millions units of components per year. They have the financial strength, parts sourcing and stocking strategies and ultimately the leverage to workaround the situation. They could even decide to invest to open their own manufacturing lines although this is a longer term solution.
 
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