The price for mainstream computer memory chips may bounce back to exceed US$1 per unit as soon as the end of this quarter, helped by Lunar New Year demand in China and a supply glut, from an 85 percent plunge over the past year, a Taipei-based market researcher said yesterday.
The chip price would also get some support from falling supply from local dynamic random access memory (DRAM) chipmakers this quarter as the nation's No.3 DRAM maker ProMOS Technologies Inc (
Coupled with rising demand in the Chinese market, "It is highly likely the price for DDR2 will rebound to exceed US$1 to US$1.2 per unit," DRAMeXchange said.
The DRAM price has plunged to US$0.93 per unit on Dec. 31, compared to US$6.32 in the beginning of last year, according to the research house.
The price decline is expected to give local companies, led by Powerchip Semiconductor Corp (
Powerchip may post record high losses of NT$7.1 billion (US$220 million) for last quarter, while its smaller rivals Nanya Technology Corp (
"Their losses may narrow in the second quarter because of improvement in DRAM price. But I do not expect the companies will return to the black anytime soon as global rivals such as Samsung Electronics Co plan to expand production this year to gain market share," Liu said.
Shares of the nation's top DRAM makers -- Powerchip, Nanya and ProMOS -- jumped 1.98 percent to 3.32 percent yesterday in the wake of 3.3 percent improvement in the spot price over the past week.
Nanya Technology and Inotera Memories Inc (
"If DRAM companies cut production, or capital spending for this year before the second quarter, the price for higher-density DDR2 1GB will have a big chance of rising 35 percent further to over US$2.5 apiece, helping those companies to return to profits," DRAMeXchange said.
The report said it would be more cost-saving for local firmss to make DDR2 1GB than DDR2 512GB and that demand for high-density memory chips was on the rise.
HSBC Holdings PLC is deepening its commitment to Taiwan as the economy emerges as one of the bank’s fastest-growing markets globally, driven by an artificial intelligence (AI) investment boom, expanding cross-border trade, and rising wealth creation. “The advantage that Taiwan has is a growth story linked to the semiconductor and broader AI industries, strong underlying corporate performance, and wealth creation,” said Surendra Rosha, HSBC’s co-chief executive for Asia and the Middle East, in an exclusive interview with the Taipei Times on June 2, during this year’s HSBC Taiwan Conference. That combination has helped HSBC cement its position as the most profitable international
The New Taiwan dollar yesterday fell sharply against the US dollar to close at its lowest level since May 22 amid a massive outflow of funds from the country because of investors panicking over global equity markets. The NT dollar ended at NT$31.580 against the US dollar, slightly lower than its close of NT$31.568 on May 22, after moving between NT$31.5 and NT$31.648 on combined turnover of US$3.062 billion on the Taipei Foreign Exchange and the Cosmos Foreign Exchange. The NT dollar received a significant hit in the morning session, slumping as much as NT$0.173 at a time when other Asian currencies
Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Co (TSMC, 台積電) is now ranked ninth among the world’s 100 most valuable companies after its market capitalization more than doubled over the past year, PricewaterhouseCoopers (PwC) Taiwan said in a report last month. TSMC’s market capitalization surged 101 percent year-on-year to US$1.427 trillion as of March 31, the accounting and consulting firm’s 2026 Global Top 100 Companies by Market Capitalization report said. The gain catapulted the world’s largest contract chipmaker from 12th place to ninth in the rankings, and it was the fastest-growing among the global top 10, it said. TSMC was the only Taiwanese company among the top
Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Co (TSMC, 台積電) yesterday reported record revenue of NT$416.975 billion (US$13.17 billion) for last month, putting the world’s largest contract chipmaker on track to set a record for quarterly revenue. Last month’s figure surpassed March’s record NT$415.19 billion and represented increases of 1.5 percent from April and 30.1 percent from a year earlier. For the first five months of the year, TSMC generated NT$1.96 trillion in revenue, up 30 percent year-on-year, it said in a statement. TSMC has forecast second-quarter revenue of between US$39 billion and US$40.2 billion, representing sequential growth of about 10 percent and year-on-year growth of about
RSS