south african Technology retailers are warning consumers and businesses to prepare for further price increases on key computer components as a global shortage driven by AI demand reduces the supply of memory chips, solid-state drives and graphics cards.
The country's three online retailers – Evetech, Dreamware Technology and tech.co.za – told TechCentral that the shortage is already severe and is likely to get worse in the coming months, with RAM consumers bearing the brunt of the pain.
According to Evetec, DDR5 memory prices have increased by 230% in the last quarter, while older DDR4 modules – which one might expect to be cheaper – have climbed 150-200% as manufacturers shift production capacity away from the older standards. SSDs have grown by 35-50%, spinning-platter hard drives by 5-15%, and GPUs by 10-20%, with further growth expected.
dreamware Director and Co-Founder Brent Raftopoulos painted an equally clear picture. “RAM has been hardest hit, with the price increasing by more than 200% since the shortage began,” he said. “For example, RAM that was selling for R2 400 before the shortage is now selling for around R7 300, which is a dramatic increase.”
The root causes are structural and global. The world's leading memory chip makers – Samsung Electronics, SK Hynix and Micron – have redirected production capacity toward high-bandwidth memory (HBM) and enterprise-grade components needed to power the AI data center buildouts driven by companies like Microsoft, Google, Amazon and Meta Platform.
worse is to come
Consumer-grade components, as Raftopoulos said, have become an afterthought. “With major flash memory factories prioritizing all AI hardware, less attractive gaming and consumer products have been largely left behind.”
Evetec reiterated this assessment. “Memory makers have redirected capacity toward AI data center products – HBM, enterprise SSDs – because margins are so high. Consumer-grade components have become a lower priority,” the company said.
Reading: Global GPU shortage threatens to deepen gaming industry crisis
All three retailers expressed concern that current shelf prices still do not fully reflect the severity of the shortage.
Evetec warned that “current shelf pricing does not fully reflect how much it costs us to replace stock” and said industry analysts estimate prices will peak around the second quarter of 2026. “Consumers should realistically expect 30-50% off on memory and storage as current inventory sells out.”
Tech.co.za MD Theo Papaioannou said increases so far had felt “preemptive, even opportunistic”, ranging from 20% to 100% depending on the component. What is even more worrying, he said, is what is going to happen next. “There are some supply constraints at this time, but more worryingly, distributors are telling us that some of their future orders have been cancelled. Most of the shortage in our view has not yet started.”
Raftopoulos said the picture is complicated because of the impact on the supply chain. “HDD (hard disk drives) have not seen that severe growth yet, but the shortage is certainly evident, with most of the common drives sold out. One can assume that this will drive up prices in the future.” On GPUs, he said some South African distributors had the foresight to order large quantities before the crisis escalated, temporarily mitigating price increases – although flagship models like the Nvidia RTX 5090 are difficult to source.
Raftopoulos said there are also rumors of CPU prices increasing.
The shortage is already changing purchasing behavior. evetech That said, it's seeing more customers opt for DDR4 platforms – such as AMD's AM4 or Intel's 12th/13th generation chipsets – to reduce DDR5 costs. “We are seeing more requests for minimum-spec builds with plans to upgrade later. Business customers are accelerating purchases to lock in current pricing. And there is growing interest in upgrading existing systems rather than doing a complete rebuild.”
Dreamware has also seen a similar trend. “We've typically seen customers who are upgrading at this time opt for lower capacity RAM. Either that, or they downgrade to DDR4,” Raftopoulos said. “Even large corporations are choosing to hold off on upgrades to avoid current pricing.”
rand gains wiped out
Papaioannou said businesses have fewer options to reduce spec than consumers. “We are seeing that businesses are choosing to postpone non-essential purchases. Consumers are opting for lower specifications, but we would not say at a good rate. We are seeing fewer redundant gadget sales, but laptop and component sales are still about the same as before.”
No retailers reported significant growth of devices-as-a-service or leasing models locally. “South African consumers and SMEs still prefer to have full ownership of their hardware,” Evetec said.
One might hope that the relative strength of the rand in recent months will provide some relief. It's not like that. The shortage is so severe that any gains in the currency have been lost.
Reading: Chip shortage hits PCs as AI swallows the world's memory supply
“We were expecting slightly better prices as the rand strengthened, but these gains have been wiped out due to global shortages,” Papaioannou said.
Evetec estimates that the current pricing pressure is approximately 70-80% driven by global factors and 20-30% by exchange rate volatility. “When global US dollar prices increase by 50% and on top of that the rand weakens, the local impact is magnified.”
Raftopoulos said South Africa's position in the global allocation hierarchy makes matters worse. “South Africa is very low in terms of global allocation of stock, with regions such as the US, UK, Europe, Asia, Australia and Canada having first choice on any stock coming out of factories. Whatever is left – which is inevitably more expensive and less desirable stock – is then offered into the South African market.”
Retailers gave mixed but largely cautious advice. Evetec was the most straightforward: “If you need hardware in the next six months, don't wait. There are early signs of spot prices stabilizing in some markets, but contract prices are still climbing and meaningful relief is not expected until late 2026.”
Papaioannou drew a distinction between consumers and businesses. “Consumers can wait it out. Businesses that have hardware deployments scheduled for 2026 need to secure stock now. There is a risk of prices going up, but the bigger risk is of not having stock availability in South Africa.”
Raftopoulos took a more philosophical approach and cautioned against trying to time the market. He said, “I wouldn't feel comfortable right now advising anyone as to what they should do specifically; there is merit on both sides of the argument.” “I personally feel that anyone buying now should not try to 'ride out the shortage'. Rather, they should try to accept that their purchase will either sooner or later be at the same price it is and not focus on whether they are paying more or less than average in the shortage. This way, you avoid panicked buyer's remorse.”
For the South African tech industry, the message is clear: the AI boom's hunger for silicon is being felt far beyond AI data centres, and there are no quick solutions in sight. – Reporting with assistance from Tadek Szutowicz, © 2026 NewsCentral Media
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