South African technology retailers are warning consumers and businesses to brace for further price hikes on key computer components as a global shortage driven by AI demand squeezes supply of memory chips, solid-state drives and graphics cards.
Three of the country’s online retailers – Evetech, Dreamware Technology and Tech.co.za – have told TechCentral that the shortages are already severe and likely to worsen in the months ahead, with RAM bearing the brunt of the pain for consumers.
DDR5 memory prices have surged by as much as 230% over the past quarter, according to Evetech, while even legacy DDR4 modules – which one might expect to be cheaper – have climbed 150-200% as manufacturers shift production capacity away from older standards. SSDs are up 35-50%, spinning-platter hard drives 5-15% and GPUs 10-20%, with further increases expected.
Dreamware director and co-founder Brent Raftopoulos painted a similarly stark picture. “RAM has taken the brunt of the impact, with pricing increasing by over 200% since the shortage started,” he said. “As an example, RAM that was selling for R2 400 before the shortage is selling for around R7 300 now, which is a dramatic increase.”
The root cause is structural and global. The world’s major memory chip manufacturers – Samsung Electronics, SK Hynix and Micron – have redirected production capacity towards high-bandwidth memory (HBM) and enterprise-grade components needed to power the AI data centre buildout being driven by companies such as Microsoft, Google, Amazon and Meta Platforms.
Worse to come
Consumer-grade components have become, as Raftopoulos put it, an afterthought. “With major flash memory factories prioritising all AI hardware, the less lucrative gaming and consumer products have taken a massive back seat.”
Evetech echoed this assessment. “Memory manufacturers have redirected capacity towards AI data centre products – HBM, enterprise SSDs – because the margins are significantly higher. Consumer-grade components have become a lower priority,” the company said.
Read: Global GPU shortage set to deepen gaming industry woes
All three retailers expressed concern that current shelf prices do not yet fully reflect the severity of the shortage.
Evetech warned that “current shelf pricing doesn’t fully reflect what it costs us to replace stock” and said industry analysts are projecting prices to peak around the second quarter of 2026. “Consumers should realistically expect another 30-50% on memory and storage as current inventory sells through.”
Tech.co.za MD Theo Papaioannou said the increases so far have felt “preemptive, even opportunistic”, ranging from 20% to as much as 100% depending on the component. More concerning, he said, is what lies ahead. “There are some supply constraints at the moment, but more worrying is that distributors are telling us that some of their future orders have been cancelled. The bulk of the shortages have not started yet in our view.”
Raftopoulos said the picture is complicated by the knock-on effects across the supply chain. “HDDs (hard disk drives) haven’t had as severe an increase yet, but the shortages are definitely evident, with the majority of common drives sold out. One can assume this will lead to price increases in future.” On GPUs, he noted that some South African distributors had the foresight to order large quantities before the crunch took hold, temporarily mitigating price increases – though flagship models such as the Nvidia RTX 5090 remain difficult to source.
There are also rumours of CPU price increases on the horizon, Raftopoulos added.
The shortages are already changing purchasing behaviour. Evetech said it is seeing more customers opt for DDR4 platforms – such as AMD’s AM4 or Intel’s 12th/13th-generation chipsets – to sidestep DDR5 costs. “We’re getting more requests for minimal-spec builds with plans to upgrade later. Business customers are accelerating purchases to lock in current pricing. And there’s growing interest in upgrading existing systems rather than doing full rebuilds.”
Dreamware has observed a similar trend. “We’ve generally noticed customers who are upgrading at the moment opting for lower capacities of RAM. Either that, or they downgrade to DDR4,” Raftopoulos said. “Even large corporations have been opting to hold off on upgrades to avoid the current pricing.”
Rand gains wiped out
Papaioannou said businesses have fewer options to down-spec than consumers. “We see businesses selecting to postpone unnecessary purchases. Consumers are selecting lower specs but we wouldn’t say at a great rate. We see less frivolous gadget sales, but the laptop and component sales continue similarly as before for now.”
None of the retailers reported significant uptake of device-as-a-service or leasing models locally. “South African consumers and SMEs still prefer to own their hardware outright,” Evetech said.
One might expect the rand’s relative strength in recent months to provide some cushion. It hasn’t. The shortage is so severe that any currency gains have been wiped out.
Read: Chip shortage hits PCs as AI swallows the world’s memory supply
“We were expecting some better prices as the rand strengthened, but these gains have been wiped by the global shortages,” Papaioannou said.
Evetech estimated that current pricing pressure is roughly 70-80% driven by global factors and 20-30% by exchange rate volatility. “When global US dollar prices jump 50% and the rand weakens on top of that, the local impact compounds.”
Raftopoulos noted that South Africa’s position in the global allocation pecking order makes matters worse. “South Africa sits very low on the pecking order for global allocations of stock, with regions such as the US, UK, Europe, Asia, Australasia and Canada having first choice on any stock that comes out of the factories. Anything left – which inevitably is the more expensive and less desirable stock – is then offered to the South African market.”
The retailers offered mixed but broadly cautious advice. Evetech was the most direct: “If you need hardware in the next six months, don’t wait. There are early signs of spot prices stabilising in some markets, but contract prices are still climbing and meaningful relief isn’t expected until late 2026 at the earliest.”
Papaioannou drew a distinction between consumers and businesses. “Consumers can wait it out. Businesses that have hardware deployments coming in 2026 need to secure stock now. There is a risk of price increases, but the greater risk is of no stock availability in South Africa.”
Raftopoulos took a more philosophical approach, cautioning against trying to time the market. “I wouldn’t feel comfortable advising anyone right now on what they should specifically do; there is merit to both sides of the argument,” he said. “I personally feel that anyone buying now shouldn’t be trying to ‘beat the shortage’. Rather, they should try to accept that their purchase either now or later will be at the price it’s at and not focus on whether they are paying more or less than the average in the shortages. That way, you avoid the dreaded buyer’s remorse.”
For the South African tech industry, the message is clear: the AI boom’s hunger for silicon is being felt far from AI data centres, and there is no quick fix in sight. – Reporting with assistance from Tadek Szutowicz, © 2026 NewsCentral Media
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