Blog

US DC demand is strong, but the smartphone demand was sluggish

DRAM

Channel Demand improved and US DC remained strong momentum, but the smartphone demand was sluggish.
The demand from US DC is good, some of their demand is stronger than expected. Regarding the RDIMM contract price, the suppliers are promoting the most advanced process to accelerate the migration progress. In conclusion, the contract price might decline less than customers’ exception even suppliers have pressure to sell more this quarter.
The smartphone market became weaker around the end of last month, the smartphone vendors’ component pulling status is slow. The suppliers are trying to have a longer contract period to secure the volume. Therefore, the price declining ratio would be higher than expected this quarter. Suppliers are promoting high-density memory to increase the memory content per box.
In the channel market, the UDIMM demand improved this month but the component trading activity is still at depressed momentum.8G DDR4 x8 original brand component declined around 10% and ETT/UTT grade component declined around 5% this month.
The consumer market performed weak this month, the contract price keeps revising down and the trading volume is slow.
Some DRAM IC design house is not willing to pull the wafer this month.
4G DDR3 x16 component price is stable, but 2G DDR3 x16 components are down more than 5% this month.

NAND

Enterprise SSD supply remained tight, but the smartphone demand was sluggish.

Due to the component shortage, the enterprise SSD price keeps increasing this quarter. The shortage condition would sustain to the first half of 2022, the eSSD supply could remain in tight condition. The suppliers have to substitute the component sooner to solve this issue.

The weakened smartphone demand caused the related memory price would decrease more than expected. The competition of market share is more serious than DRAM. NAND has more suppliers and the oversupply status is more severe than DRAM. The contract price will decrease more than expected this quarter since suppliers like to secure longer contract periods.

The NAND wafer price keeps declining, the selling price would be negotiable with meaningful volume.
The channel SSD price is related stable this month and the wafer price is matching the price now.
However, the module houses are not willing to accumulate the inventory, they are waiting for the demand improving.

Tags: ,