Japan’s curbs on key semiconductor material exports to South Korea would not significantly boost the prices of memory chips in the short term, due to chipmakers’ high inventories, market researcher TrendForce Corp (集邦科技) said in a report yesterday.
Memorychip makers have seen chip prices plunging for the past three quarters due to oversupply and sluggish end product demand, TrendForce said.
The Japan-South Korea dispute led to hikes in the prices of DRAM modules, due to increasingly tight supply of key materials used in the manufacturing of semiconductors, smartphones and flat panels, the Taipei-based firm said.
However, “the possibility is slim that such disputes will trigger a short-term, structural reversal of supply and demand,” since Japan has only lengthened the export procedures for photoresist, hydrogen fluoride and etching gas to South Korea, but did not ban them altogether, the report said.
High inventories could serve as a buffer, TrendForce implied.
As DRAM suppliers generally have more than three months of chips in stock, prices for DRAM chips used in PCs, servers and handsets are likely to see an extended decline at the beginning of this quarter, TrendForce said.
“No signs of reversal are found as of present,” it said. “The possibility of a structural reversal of supply and demand in the DRAM market should be slim.”
On the NAND flash front, prices are to increase this month, as supply tightened amid Japan’s export controls and Toshiba Memory Corp’s production loss from a brief power outage last month, the report said.
However, the price increases would be short-lived, given that NAND flash chip suppliers usually keep two to three months of chips in their inventories, the report said.
In the long run, NAND flash memorychip makers face downward price pressure, TrendForce said.
Japanese technology giant Softbank Group Corp said Tuesday it has sold its stake in Nvidia Corp, raising US$5.8 billion to pour into other investments. It also reported its profit nearly tripled in the first half of this fiscal year from a year earlier. Tokyo-based Softbank said it sold the stake in Silicon Vally-based Nvidia last month, a move that reflects its shift in focus to OpenAI, owner of the artificial intelligence (AI) chatbot ChatGPT. Softbank reported its profit in the April-to-September period soared to about 2.5 trillion yen (about US$13 billion). Its sales for the six month period rose 7.7 percent year-on-year
CRESTING WAVE: Companies are still buying in, but the shivers in the market could be the first signs that the AI wave has peaked and the collapse is upon the world Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Co (TSMC, 台積電) yesterday reported a new monthly record of NT$367.47 billion (US$11.85 billion) in consolidated sales for last month thanks to global demand for artificial intelligence (AI) applications. Last month’s figure represented 16.9 percent annual growth, the slowest pace since February last year. On a monthly basis, sales rose 11 percent. Cumulative sales in the first 10 months of the year grew 33.8 percent year-on-year to NT$3.13 trillion, a record for the same period in the company’s history. However, the slowing growth in monthly sales last month highlights uncertainty over the sustainability of the AI boom even as
AI BOOST: Next year, the cloud and networking product business is expected to remain a key revenue pillar for the company, Hon Hai chairman Young Liu said Manufacturing giant Hon Hai Precision Industry Co (鴻海精密) yesterday posted its best third-quarter profit in the company’s history, backed by strong demand for artificial intelligence (AI) servers. Net profit expanded 17 percent annually to NT$57.67 billion (US$1.86 billion) from NT$44.36 billion, the company said. On a quarterly basis, net profit soared 30 percent from NT$44.36 billion, it said. Hon Hai, which is Apple Inc’s primary iPhone assembler and makes servers powered by Nvidia Corp’s AI accelerators, said earnings per share expanded to NT$4.15 from NT$3.55 a year earlier and NT$3.19 in the second quarter. Gross margin improved to 6.35 percent,
FAULTs BELOW: Asia is particularly susceptible to anything unfortunate happening to the AI industry, with tech companies hugely responsible for its market strength The sudden slump in Asia’s technology shares last week has jolted investors, serving as a stark reminder that the world-beating rally in artificial intelligence (AI) and semiconductor stocks might be nearing a short-term crest. The region’s sharpest decline since April — triggered by a tech-led sell-off on Wall Street — has refocused attention on cracks beneath the surface: the rally’s narrow breadth, heavy reliance on retail traders, and growing uncertainty around the timing of US Federal Reserve interest-rate cuts. Last week’s “sell-off is a reminder that Asia’s market structure is just more vulnerable,” Saxo Markets chief investment strategist Charu Chanana said in
RSS