Micron to Exit the Crucial Consumer Business: Higher RAM Prices Ahead?

Micron Technology’s decision to walk away from consumer memory is more than a brand change, it is a clear signal that artificial intelligence is reshaping the economics of making chips. 

Micron began in 1978 as a small design consultancy founded by Ward Parkinson, Joe Parkinson, Dennis Wilson, and Doug Pitman in Boise, Idaho, backed by local investors including J.R. Simplot. By 1983, the company was already punching above its weight by producing chips roughly half the size of leading Japanese products. Now, nearly five decades later, Micron is choosing which customers get priority access to its limited manufacturing capacity, and everyday PC buyers are no longer at the top of that list (“AI memory hunger forces Micron’s consumer exodus”).

On December 3, 2025, Micron confirmed it will exit the Crucial consumer business, ending sales of Crucial branded products through major retailers, e tailers, and distributors worldwide. The company plans to keep shipping through the consumer channel until the end of its fiscal Q2, February 2026, and says it will continue warranty service and support for existing Crucial products. Micron also expects to reduce impact on employees through redeployment into open roles, while continuing to sell Micron branded enterprise products through commercial channels (“Micron Announces Exit from Crucial Consumer Business”). Micron’s EVP and Chief Business Officer Sumit Sadana summed up the driver: AI fueled data center growth is pushing demand for memory and storage so sharply that the company is reallocating supply toward larger strategic customers in faster growing segments (“Micron Announces Exit from Crucial Consumer Business”).

The underlying math is hard to ignore. Micron is the world’s third largest DRAM producer with about 20 percent market share, behind Samsung Electronics at roughly 43 percent and SK Hynix at about 35 percent, an oligopoly that controls close to 95 percent of global DRAM output (“AI memory hunger forces Micron’s consumer exodus”). AI servers consume far more memory than typical systems, and industry estimates cited by TrendForce and IDC suggest AI server configurations require multiple times the memory capacity of standard data center hardware, which increases the value of every wafer routed toward enterprise products (“Why Micron Is Killing Its Consumer Memory Business ‘Crucial’”). Those enterprise lines, including high bandwidth memory and advanced server DRAM, tend to come with higher margins, multi year contracts, and steadier demand, while retail memory is volatile and price sensitive (“Why Micron Is Killing Its Consumer Memory Business ‘Crucial’”).

Recent market signals show how intense the squeeze has become. Micron reported record fiscal 2025 revenue of $37.38 billion, up nearly 50 percent year over year, driven largely by data center and AI use, which represented 56 percent of total revenue (“AI memory hunger forces Micron’s consumer exodus”). At the same time, DRAM spot prices rose 172 percent year over year by Q3 2025, and 32GB DDR5 retail pricing jumped dramatically in global markets since September 2025. Suppliers reported paying about $13 for 16GB DDR5 chips that had cost about $7 only six weeks earlier, enough to wipe out margins for many third party brands (“AI memory hunger forces Micron’s consumer exodus”). Pressures are spilling into adjacent components too, including higher NAND contract prices, shifts to GDDR7 that can tighten GDDR6 availability, and even modest hard drive price increases tied to constrained supply (“AI memory hunger forces Micron’s consumer exodus”).

For consumers, Crucial’s pullback removes a rare combination of “manufacturer credibility” and approachable pricing that made it a staple for DIY builders. Retailers and distributors have already reported reduced shipments, existing Crucial RAM kits and SSDs may remain available for a while, but new launches are unlikely, and the product roadmap is effectively frozen (“Why Micron Is Killing Its Consumer Memory Business ‘Crucial’”). Other brands such as Kingston, Corsair, ADATA, and TeamGroup will stay in the spotlight, but they still source chips from the same few manufacturers, and now must compete harder for allocations while those suppliers increasingly prioritize AI oriented memory (“AI memory hunger forces Micron’s consumer exodus”). At a bigger level, this shift raises uncomfortable questions about resilience and access: if only two major vendors remain heavily exposed to both consumer and enterprise demand, any disruption can ripple quickly into pricing and availability, potentially raising the cost of personal computing and small business infrastructure (“AI memory hunger forces Micron’s consumer exodus”).

This article was written by the Covertly.AI team. Covertly.AI is a secure, anonymous AI chat that protects your privacy. Connect to advanced AI models without tracking, logging, or exposure of your data. Whether you’re an individual who values privacy or a business seeking enterprise-grade data protection, Covertly.AI helps you stay secure and anonymous when using AI. With Covertly.AI, you get seamless access to all popular large language models - without compromising your identity or data privacy.

Try Covertly.AI today for free at www.covertly.ai, or contact us to learn more about custom privacy and security solutions for your business.  

Works Cited

“AI memory hunger forces Micron’s consumer exodus: A turning point in semiconductor economics.” Artificial Intelligence News, n.d., https://www.artificialintelligence-news.com/news/ai-memory-hunger-micron-consumer-exit/. 

“Why Micron Is Killing Its Consumer Memory Business ‘Crucial’.” INDmoney Blog, n.d., https://www.indmoney.com/blog/us-stocks/why-micron-is-killing-crucial-ram. 

“Micron Announces Exit from Crucial Consumer Business.” Yahoo Finance, 3 Dec. 2025, https://ca.finance.yahoo.com/news/micron-announces-exit-crucial-consumer-164000543.html. 

Micron Technology, Inc. “DDR4 SDRAM Memory.” Micron, Micron Technology, Inc., n.d., https://www.micron.com/products/memory/dram-components/ddr4-sdram. Naz, Seher. “DDR5 

Ram: Is DDR5 Ram Worth It?” Direct Macro Blog, Direct Macro, 3 Jan. 2025, https://directmacro.com/blog/post/ddr5-ram-is-ddr5-ram-worth-it. Norem, Josh. “Micron: GDDR7 

Memory Delivers 30% FPS Boost in Gaming.” ExtremeTech, Ziff Davis, LLC, 2 July 2024, https://www.extremetech.com/gaming/micron-gddr7-memory-delivers-30-fps-boost-in-gaming.