Investment Rating - The industry investment rating is "Recommended," indicating a favorable outlook for the industry with expectations that the industry index will outperform the benchmark index [30]. Core Insights - The storage market has experienced a significant price increase since May, driven by supply-side concentration and recovering downstream demand. Major players like Samsung, SK Hynix, and Micron collectively hold about 95% market share, which enhances their pricing power [3][8]. - The price of DDR4 16GB has risen over 100% from its February low, while DDR5 16GB has increased by over 25%, reaching new highs for 2024 [3][4]. - The recovery in demand for storage is supported by the resurgence in applications such as mobile phones, PCs, servers, and automotive sectors, with notable increases in memory usage per device [12][17]. Summary by Sections Price Trends - Starting from March to April, storage manufacturers like Scandisk initiated price hikes, followed by significant price increases from Samsung and SK Hynix in May. Samsung raised DDR4 prices by approximately 20% and DDR5 by about 5%, while SK Hynix increased DRAM prices by 12% [3][4]. - As of late May, the storage chip market has seen accelerated price increases, with DDR4 and DDR5 prices reaching new highs compared to earlier in the year [4][5]. Supply and Demand Dynamics - The storage price increase is primarily driven by a highly concentrated supply market and recovering demand from key applications. The production of computers in China is expected to grow by over 10% in 2024, with a strong growth rate continuing in early 2025 [12][16]. - Despite a negative growth in mobile phone production from January to May, the sales value has increased by over 25%, indicating a potential recovery in production demand in the latter half of the year [16][20]. Application Trends - There is a notable increase in single-device storage usage across major applications in 2025. For instance, the memory in smartphones has increased from 8-12GB to 12-16GB, while server memory has risen from 80GB to 384GB [17][21]. - In the automotive sector, new models are showing significantly higher memory usage, with examples like the Xiaopeng G7 series featuring 216GB of memory, which is 8-10 times higher than typical vehicles in the same price range [21][22]. Company Performance Outlook - A-share listed storage companies, primarily engaged in module production and distribution, are expected to see significant performance improvements due to the rising storage prices. The price increases in the current cycle are anticipated to exceed those seen in early 2024, leading to more pronounced improvements in company performance [24][26].