14 DAY TRIAL // Until a week ago, it seemed as though that fire that hit one of SK Hynix' DRAM manufacturing plants in Wuxi, China hadn't been such a big deal.
Now, though, we get to see exactly what consequences something like that can have on a supply-demand ecosystem with its roots in capitalism.
Since SKY Hynix accounts for much of the world's memory supply, even that one fire proved quite disruptive. This led to shortages, which led to price increases.
Now it's been reported that shortages will get worse in October.
It won't really cause stores to suddenly go out of memory modules, but it will lead to a general increase in prices. Since, so far, they've already grown by 40%, that's not something anyone looks forward to, except the ones making them.
2 GB DDR3 chips sold for $2.30 / €1.70 on September 2, 2013.