Supposedly manufacturing capacity is being switched prior to Christmas
from secure digital, compact flash, etc. products to DDR products. SD
and CF have been dirt cheap lately. Also I believe some RAM makers were
convicted of price fixing lately. So DDR is supposed to get cheaper
soon. That does not explain your observation.
In the US, the dollar exchange rate has to be adding to the price.
I've read that there are now so many types of memory, and applications
(CF, smart, SD, PDAs, cell phones, etc) that if the chip makers and
packagers don't exactly match what the system builders make, and the
merket buys there will be wild fluctuations, up, when there are spot
shortages, and people that can scan pricewatch.com will be able to get
bargins, on excess inventory, sometimes.