Smartphone shipment projections remain similar to last month.
While high-end smartphone demand remains steady, mid-range and budget segment demand appears sluggish.
China smartphone market performed weak in the beginning of this year compared with last year.
PC demand looks weak in 1H24, with feedback from certain supply chain vendor indicating that education replacement demand might not meet PC OEM expectations.
In the China server market, some bidding demand emerged.
AI server demand remained strong, conventional server demand showed no signs of significant improvement.
DRAM
US DCs bank some inventory last quarter, but the inventory level is not high enough for most server OEMs. They might need a couple of quarters to accumulate enough inventory.
The first quarter RDIMM contract price has risen much more than anticipated.
Regarding LPDRAM, the contract price gap between LPDDR5x and LPDDR4 will shrink, and this trend will continue in the coming quarters.
Moreover, the UDIMM contract price gap between DDR4 and DDR5 also shrank.
The spot price has increased significantly this month, and the channel module price to rise as well.
While the transaction exceeded expectations in the end of December timeframe, both the China and worldwide markets have seen a decline this month compared to last month.
Channel brokers are anticipating a potential shortage of DDR4 components in the near future, which could lead to further price increases after the Lunar Chinese New Year.
The consumer DRAM price increased, and DDR4 raised more than DDR3 as expected.
China bidding case announced, consumer DRAM prices may experience a further increase.
This month, in the spot market,
16G DDR5 x8 original brand component up mid. single digit.
16G DDR4 x8 original brand component up mid. single digit.
16G DDR4 x8 ETT/UTT grade component up 10% around.
8G DDR4 x8 original brand component up 10%.
8G DDR4 x8 ETT/UTT grade component up 10% around.
4G DDR3 x16 original brand component up slightly, almost flat.
4G DDR3 x16 ETT/UTT grade component up high single digit.
NAND
The contract price increased by around 30% for most NAND solutions, with eSSD contract prices rising even further.
Raw NAND wafer prices increased, suggesting that contract prices could rise further.
Content expansion may slow amid price surge, but suppliers need profit to function.
The price uptrend could continue for longer if suppliers don’t significantly increase NAND production.
The channel cSSD price increased by a mid-single digit percentage this month, but the transaction volume is lower than last month.
Vendors have no intention to sell goods before Lunar Chinese New Year, and they have strong confidence that the selling price will be raised afterwards.