DRAM
Pricing trends are different for each segment
The overall demand hasn’t improved so far.
Additional capacity cuts from major vendor helps the market turned into positive perspective.
Major suppliers are enlarging DDR5 and LPDDR5x production in 2H23 for better ASP and meeting customer’s demand.
The smartphone related memory solution contract price up with different level in 3Q23, LPDDR5x price hike more than others due to relatively supply constraints.
China vendors began to pull in goods from the memory suppliers, which indicate that they are increasing the on hand inventory, and they believed memory price bottom out.
The server market performed weak, both enterprise server vendors and CSP customers’ demand is slower than anticipated.
The DDR5 RDIMM contract pricing is lower than prediction. Some low price offering was detected this month, the price could be lower in Sep. as the quarter end.
However, the AI related demand remained strong, and the traditional server demand might recover in 2024.
The PC market hasn’t deliver good signal as well, the shipment target might deduct more in 2023.
Certain supplier likes to raise the DDR5 UDIMM pricing continuously in 4Q23, but the DDR5-5600 supply constrain would be eased in 4Q23.
It will bring some uncertainties to the DDR5 UDIMM pricing in 4Q23.
Consumer pricing is getting stable as the leading DRAM vendor cut lots of capacity.
DRAM suppliers will try to raise the monthly consumer DRAM contract ASP in Sep., it might back to 2Q23 level.
The 4Q23 quarter contract price might increase if they succeed in September.
The spot price is relatively stable, the transaction is not much and the special deal hasn’t detected so far.
However, the volume deal might happen in the 3Q23 end.
In this month, the low grade DDR5/DDR4 component price up.
The overall channel demand improved compared with last month, the majority demand comes from DDR5 module.
This month, in the spot market,
16G DDR4 x8 original brand component is stable.
16G DDR4 x8 ETT/UTT grade component is stable.
8G DDR4 x8 original brand component declined slightly.
8G DDR4 x8 ETT/UTT grade component up 10% around.
4G DDR3 x16 original brand component is stable.
4G DDR3 x16 ETT/UTT grade component down mid single digit.
NAND
NAND wafer price increased significantly, additional capacity cut does help.
The dealt wafer price up significantly this month. Several major China module house had accepted the price.
However, the actual demand has not yet shown any obvious improvement.
More and more module houses are willing to accept the price, and some trading price has raised.
The SSD channel price offering has increased a lot, but the actual dealing price is not as high as official offering.
However, the current condition is much better than previous months, and the channel price could rise or remain stable in the coming months.
The coming quarter end might be a pressure for the wafer price, but the channel SSD price could be raised continuously.
The huge capacity cut from the major vendor does help to change the market sentiment. The spot market reflect the impact earlier than the contract market.
The contract price could be stable or up in 4Q23 if the demand is good enough.
In the long run, the supplier should keep low UT% until the solid demand returns in 2024, or the pricing upturn and stabilizing condition could be changed.