Semiconductor Prices Continue to Fall... Will Industry Recovery Be Delayed?
D-RAM Contract Prices Drop Sharply
NAND Prices Stable Since April
DDR5 Price Increase Expected in Q4
PC DRAM prices widened their decline in August, revealing that the semiconductor market is struggling to recover. NAND flash prices have remained steady since April, but there are forecasts that prices for enterprise solid-state drives (SSDs) equipped with NAND could fall in the third quarter. This raises concerns that the semiconductor industry’s recovery may be delayed despite market expectations for improvement within the year.
Market research firm DRAMeXchange reported on the 1st that the fixed transaction price (contract price between companies) for PC-use Double Data Rate 4 (DDR4) DRAM (8Gb 1Gx8) in August dropped 2.99% from the previous month to $1.30. The price of this product has been declining for five consecutive months since April. Although the rate of decline seemed to be narrowing from April (-19.89%), May (-3.45%), June (-2.86%), and July (-1.47%), the rate of decline increased again in August.
DDR5 DRAM avoided price drops. Market research firm TrendForce explained that PC DDR5 market inventory is at a low level, stating, "The average selling price (ASP) of 8GB DDR5 PC DRAM modules in August remained the same as the previous month at $15.3." They also forecast that fixed transaction prices for PC DRAM will mostly remain stable in the fourth quarter, with "DDR5 fixed transaction prices potentially rising 0-5% compared to the previous quarter."
The fixed transaction price for NAND used in memory cards and USBs (128Gb 16Gx8) was $3.82 in August, maintaining the same price since April. TrendForce predicted, "This month’s fixed transaction price will be similar to that of August." For SSDs, which are auxiliary devices that store large amounts of data based on NAND, they expected "the average price of enterprise SSDs in the third quarter to fall about 15% compared to the previous quarter."
Meanwhile, the enterprise SSD market size in the second quarter was $1.5 billion, down 24.9% from the previous quarter. Demand for enterprise SSDs was sluggish due to ongoing inflation and economic recession, as well as conservative investment behavior by cloud service providers (CSPs). TrendForce assessed that although this market trend will continue into the third quarter, the increase in artificial intelligence (AI) server investments and the rising adoption rate of high-capacity enterprise SSDs are positive factors.
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Samsung Electronics ranked first in the second quarter enterprise SSD market with a 35.2% share, although this was a decrease from 40.1% in the previous quarter. SK Hynix (including its subsidiary Solidigm) was second with a 24.9% share. U.S.-based Micron was third with a 14.3% share. SK Hynix and Micron increased their shares by 2.0 percentage points and 3.4 percentage points respectively compared to the previous quarter.
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