Some PC makers have returned to normal inventory level, including both set inventory and component inventory.
The purchasing volume is expected to normalize.
However, annual shipments might decline high single digit in 2023.
Regarding the smartphone market, overall component inventory levels for suppliers have decreased.
Although the China market might be able to sustain the demand this year compared to 2022, worldwide smartphone shipment is expected to decline due to inflation and weak economic situation.
DRAM
Capacity cut is required to balance the market earlier
Certain applications have lower inventory level, additional DRAM capacity cuts are required to avoid serious price declining in the following quarters.
After couple quarters inventory adjustments, some enterprise server vendors would increase their demand in the second quarter.
So far, the US datacenter performed sluggishly.
In addition, the current RDIMM5 supply seems tight due to PMIC issues.
This month, DRAM agents offered lower price to their customer in order to push DRAM vendors to lower down the second quarter quotation.
The contract price is lower than anticipated for 1H23.
Vendors accepted a price cut in March timeframe due to weak demand.
The channel market demand has improved this month compared with February timeframe.
Some DRAM suppliers offered attractive deals with meaningful volume to close the deal, and certain module house believe the DRAM price is relatively bottomed out.
However, the market requires some stimulation to slow down the decline in ASP.
As mentioned, the demand side is aggressive on price erosion, and the demand from smartphone or server market is getting worse.
All DRAM vendors should cut capacity further to ease the current serious oversupply condition.
Therefore, we may expect suppliers’ announcement about extra capacity deduction in the near future.
This might change the market sentiment, slowing down the DRAM price reduction or even leading to a short-term rebound.
This month, in the spot market,
16G DDR4 x8 original brand component declined closed to 10%..
16G DDR4 x8 ETT/UTT grade component declined mid single digit.
8G DDR4 x8 original brand component declined mid single digit.
8G DDR4 x8 ETT/UTT grade component declined slightly.
4G DDR3 x16 original brand component declined high single digit.
4G DDR3 x16 ETT/UTT grade component declined low single digit.
NAND
NAND market worsened, the ASP sharply declined in volume deal
Suppliers offered attractive price in March to close the big volume deals.
The decline in raw NAND wafer ASP is significant,
The channel SSD market demand has improved compared with last month, and the ASP erosion continued.
The NAND suppliers are expanding their customer base in order to consume more NAND Flash.
The consumer market is sluggish in 1Q23, the vendors are offering special price to have better shipment in late March.
Some module makers are expecting the raw NAND price bottomed out in 2Q23, and they accepted huge volume deal in March timeframe.