Counterpoint Research put third-quarter DRAM revenue at nearly $200 billion, up 369% year on year, as we reported on November 7, and Winbond’s own release put its October revenue at NT$29.361 billion, up 256.96% from a year earlier, as we reported on November 8. On the buying side, Apple’s chief financial officer Kevan Parekh said its roughly one-point fall in September-quarter gross margin, excluding tariff refunds, was “driven entirely by memory impacts”.
In our November 3 piece, that point came to about $1.1 billion of gross profit, by our arithmetic, and the 1.4-point step implied for December, mostly memory by Apple’s account, to about $2.2 billion. That is about twice the September figure, by our arithmetic in this piece. The suppliers’ numbers and Apple’s cover different periods and measures, so we show them side by side and do not combine them.
Business Pill · The Memory Wall
An evergreen Business Engineer explainer on memory as a constraint. It teaches the general idea only and does not discuss Apple, Winbond or this week’s figures.
The key insight: Counterpoint put third-quarter DRAM revenue up 369% year on year and Winbond’s October revenue rose 256.96%, while Apple put its roughly one-point September-quarter margin fall, excluding tariff refunds, entirely on memory, about $1.1 billion of gross profit by our arithmetic, with the 1.4-point December step it implied, mostly memory by its account, at about $2.2 billion. Winbond’s chair hopes prices have peaked; Counterpoint expects them to stay strong next year.
Counterpoint’s senior analyst Jeongku Choi called the quarter “a pricing super-cycle, not yet a volume cycle”, and Counterpoint said bit shipments rose only about 4% in the quarter, as we reported. Counterpoint put Samsung at 38% of DRAM revenue, SK hynix at 29% and Micron at 21%.
Winbond’s month-on-month gain was 3.94% in October, after 29.99% in July, according to its release. Mirror Daily wrote that some large memory makers have gross margins as high as 70% to 80%, as our Winbond piece reported.
On supply, Chosun Biz reported that Samsung Electronics and SK Hynix are each putting 10 trillion to 20 trillion won into ASML’s EUV tools, and ASML said its supply as planned for 2027 and 2028 “will not fully meet the demand of our customers”, as we reported. SK Hynix’s 11.95 trillion won March purchase equals up to 29 standard EUV tools at ASML’s 2025 average, by our arithmetic in that piece.
On the factory floor, Samsung Electronics, SK Hynix and Micron, which account for more than 70% of the global memory market, are pursuing a common charging standard for mobile robots in chip fabs, Seoul Economic Daily reported, as we covered.
Left: Counterpoint Research put third-quarter DRAM revenue up 369% year on year, and Winbond’s October revenue was up 256.96% (its release). Right: Apple’s roughly one-point September-quarter gross-margin fall, which its CFO said was driven entirely by memory impacts, is about $1.1 billion of gross profit, and the 1.4-point December step it implied, mostly memory by Apple’s account, is about $2.2 billion (our arithmetic, FourWeekMBA, 3 Nov). The two panels use different measures and are not combined.
Who Is Paying
Apple chief executive John Ternus said on the November 2 call: “What we’re seeing with memory pricing right now is unprecedented”. The 1.4-point December step is Apple’s outlook, not a reported result, and Apple says it is mostly, not entirely, memory.
Elon Musk wrote on X on October 1 and 2 that Tesla had cut the memory on its AI5 chip to 96GB and on its AI6 chip to 144GB, calling it “the only way to get enough volume for Optimus production”. Both ended one-third below their earlier memory, by our arithmetic in our November 2 piece.
Winbond’s chairman Chiao Yu-Chun said AI companies accept memory price increases readily, but phones, PCs and other consumer electronics struggle to absorb the rising cost, according to Mirror Daily.
The Peak Debate
Chiao said on November 7 that they hope memory prices have peaked, Mirror Daily and the Liberty Times reported. Asked whether memory makers could keep pushing margins higher, Chiao said they did not think so, in our translation of the Chinese reported by Mirror Daily.
Counterpoint’s research director MS Hwang said “Memory prices should stay strong next year” and that “supply will stay tight because major new fabs will not start production until 2028”.
On the shares, from the October 29 close to the November 6 close, SK hynix fell 25.8%, Samsung Electronics 18.7% and Micron 26.1%, by our arithmetic in our November 7 piece. Micron was still up 141.76% from its 2025 year-end close to November 6, we calculated from Nasdaq.com closes. Neither piece makes a claim about why the shares moved.
From the October 29 close to the November 6 close, SK hynix fell 25.8%, Samsung Electronics 18.7% and Micron 26.1% (KRX closes via Yahoo Finance; Nasdaq official closes for Micron; index and changes are our arithmetic, FourWeekMBA, 7 Nov), while Counterpoint said on November 5 that memory prices were still rising. No claim is made about why the shares moved.
Who Absorbs the Turn
On long-term agreements (LTAs), investor Gavin Baker said that “you might blow up your entire business and your franchise by breaking an LTA”, in a clip we reported on November 8.
An account on X quoted with that clip pointed to the chipmaker onsemi as a precedent. onsemi’s long-term supply agreements held about $16.6 billion of remaining performance obligations at the end of 2022 and about $7.1 billion at the end of 2025, its 10-K filings show, a 57% drop by our arithmetic. Its 10-K for 2025 says “During 2025, certain LTSAs were modified in response to changes in demand”.
As we read the week’s numbers together, the suppliers are the winners so far: revenuegrowth in the hundreds of percent at the DRAM industry level and at Winbond, with the three largest makers also cooperating on fab automation.
As we read Apple’s and Tesla’s statements, buyers are paying in two ways: Apple in gross margin, which it puts on memory, and Tesla in design, by cutting the memory on its AI5 and AI6 chips by a third.
As we read the long-term agreement debate, contracts decide who absorbs a turn in prices: Baker argues buyers cannot walk away without losing future allocations, while onsemi’s filings show its LTSA book fell 57% and some agreements were modified in 2025.
Apple chief executive John Ternus, on the November 2 earnings call
“What we’re seeing with memory pricing right now is unprecedented”
Three Implications
FOR MEMORY MAKERS Counterpoint said bit shipments rose only about 4% in the quarter while DRAM revenue rose 369% year on year, and its research director said supply will stay tight because major new fabs will not start production until 2028.
FOR DEVICE MAKERS Apple’s CFO put its roughly one-point September-quarter margin fall, excluding tariff refunds, entirely on memory, and Winbond’s chairman said phones, PCs and other consumer electronics struggle to absorb the rising cost, according to Mirror Daily.
FOR WHAT TO WATCH Whether long-term agreements hold if prices turn: Baker says breaking one could blow up a buyer’s business, while onsemi’s 2025 10-K says certain LTSAs were modified in response to changes in demand.
The essay says “HBM growth is outpacing accelerator demand, making memory the rate-limiting factor in the AI scaling equation.”
As we read it, this week’s numbers show where that constraint lands: in suppliers’ revenuegrowth and in a buyer’s gross margin. The essay does not discuss Apple, Winbond or this week’s figures.
What Is Not Established
The supplier figures and Apple’s figures are not comparable measures: Counterpoint’s 369% is industry revenuegrowth for a quarter, Winbond’s 256.96% is one company’s growth for a month, and Apple’s figures are gross-profit dollars by our arithmetic, one of them an outlook. We do not add them or infer a price per bit. Apple does not say how much of the December step is memory.
We have not read the memory makers’ own LTA terms. The pieces this one draws on make no claim about why the shares moved.
This Week In The AI Supercycle
The Great Convergence of Capital, Power, and Geopolitics
This week’s issue: for two years the AI build-out was priced as a supply story, and last week as a credit story. This week it was priced as a permission story, and the answer arrived as a cost, not a ban.
Counterpoint put third-quarter DRAM revenue up 369% year on year, and Winbond’s October revenue rose 256.96%. Apple put its roughly one-point September-quarter margin fall, excluding tariff refunds, entirely on memory, about $1.1 billion of gross profit by our arithmetic, and the 1.4-point December step it implied, mostly memory by its account, is about $2.2 billion, about twice as much. Winbond’s chair hopes prices have peaked, Counterpoint expects them to stay strong next year, and onsemi’s LTSA book fell 57% from 2022 to 2025 by our arithmetic.
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A note on sourcing. This analysis is built only from eight FourWeekMBA pieces published between November 2 and November 8, 2026, each linked in the text; every figure and quote is as reported, with its original source, in those pieces (Counterpoint Research, Winbond’s revenue release, Mirror Daily and the Liberty Times, Apple’s November 2 call, Elon Musk’s posts on X, Chosun Biz, Seoul Economic Daily, Nasdaq.com and KRX closes, and onsemi’s 10-K filings). The comparison of the September and December figures is our arithmetic. We did not contact any of the companies named.
Gennaro Cuofano is a CRO and tech executive who has worked in AI since late 2015, starting with bringing NLP, natural-language generation, voice and chatbot products to the marketing industry. His background is in law and finance: he holds a Master's degree in Law and an International MBA with an emphasis on corporate finance (LUISS Business School and the University of San Diego, 2012), and worked as a financial analyst at a real-estate investment firm in San Diego and as an assistant controller. His work focuses on business model strategy, business engineering and, more broadly, structural analysis: how companies make money, read from their own filings. He created FourWeekMBA and leads research there and at The Business Engineer, his newsletter on AI and business strategy, with over 95,000 subscribers and more than 1,000 published analyses. His writing has also appeared on Entrepreneur (for example, How to Digitize a Family Business in Europe) and HackerNoon. Find him on LinkedIn and Substack. See how we source.
