DRAM
After the Inotera power outage event, spot price hike and brokers are banking inventory.
Both DRAM component and UDIMM module shipment increased, and the ASP raised significantly this month.
The consumer shipment remained strong status this month, the 2Gb and 4Gb DDR3 demand are much stronger than expected.
In conclusion, 8Gbit DDR4 original brand component raised more than 20% this month. Regarding the consumer spot price, 2Gb DDR3 increased 24% and 4Gbit DDR3 increased 20%+ this month.
Regarding the contract market, the supply side raised the Q1 ASP target after the obviously spot price upturn.
The PC UDIMM and Server UDIMM ASP could be flat or slightly increasing by different customer and condition.
The mobile DRAM and xMCP ASP could be flat or slightly up as well.
However, we may expect significant growth from the consumer DRAM due to insufficient support to the market.
As mentioned, the demand side is banking inventory since late 4Q20 and 1Q21, it could be a negative impact on the 2H21 ASP uptrend.
NAND
The strong channel SSD demand from EU market extends to this month, but the overall demand is not obviously improving.
The channel SSD selling price and component ASP slightly increased in this month, and the 3D NAND raw wafer ASP is relatively flat.
The PC OEM cSSD ASP declined around 5%~10% in average in 1Q20, but it could be quite different from each density.
The supply side is promoting high-density SSD to their customer and offered price premium for advanced technology to accelerate the new product transition.
The high-density cSSD such as 512GB and 1TB declined much more than 128GB and 256GB.
The eSSD ASP would decline more than 5% as well in 1Q21 due to weak demand.
In the coming 1Q21, the high-density uMCP such as 256+96/256+64/256+48 demand upside a little from the smartphone market.
Which means the high end smartphone NAND content improved and the average storage density could be increasing.