The contract prices of DRAM chips are to rise by as much as 18 percent sequentially this quarter — the first price upticks in about eight quarters — driven mainly by inventory rebuilding demand for DRAM chips used in mobile devices and PCs, TrendForce Corp (集邦科技) projected yesterday.
The price rebound is led by a quarterly increase of mobile DRAM chips, which are to climb between 13 percent and 18 percent quarter-on-quarter this quarter, which has not been seen since the fourth quarter of 2021, the Taipei-based market researcher predicted.
Likewise, the price of mainstream PC DDR4 DRAM is expected to bounce back for the first time in about two years at a quarterly pace of 9.6 percent this quarter, the researcher said, adding that the prices have plummeted 64 percent since the final quarter of 2021.
Photo: Bloomberg / Seong-Joon Cho
As the pickup remains lukewarm, TrendForce expects DRAM chipmakers to see scant growth in shipments this quarter. Additionally, the researcher has a conservative outlook for server DRAM chips, given that inventory continues to hover at a high level.
As a result, Samsung Electronics Co — the world’s largest memorychip maker — is to accelerate its capacity reduction this quarter by slashing mainstream DDR4 chip production by 30 percent to alleviate inventory pressure, TrendForce said.
Last quarter, the world’s major DRAM chipmakers saw their revenue increase 18 percent sequentially to total US$13.48 billion, benefiting from a gradual improvement in demand during the second half of this year, TrendForce said in a report yesterday.
Samsung registered 15.9 percent quarterly growth in revenue to US$5.25 billion, as the South Korean memorychip maker started cranking out its first new-generation 1-alpha-nanometer DDR5 chips, which delivered a price premium, the report said.
SK Hynix Inc, the world’s second-largest memorychip maker, enjoyed the strongest revenue growth of 34.4 percent sequentially to US$4.63 billion, supported by robust demand for high-bandwidth memory and DDR5 chips, which were mostly used in artificial-intelligence servers, the report said. SK Hynix has seen shipments rise for a third consecutive quarter beginning last quarter, with memorychip prices jumping 10 percent quarterly, it said.
US memorychip maker Micron Technology Inc reported a 4.2-percent growth in revenue to US$3.08 billion last quarter, attributable to shipment expansion, while it saw a mild decline in average selling price last quarter from the previous quarter.
Taiwan’s Nanya Technology Corp (南亞科技) saw revenue grow 10 percent quarterly last quarter to about US$244 million, thanks to shipment increases at a quarterly rate between 17 and 19 percent due to improving PC DRAM demand. However, demand for its major DDR3 and DDR4 products remained sluggish last quarter, as prices for these chips extended in a downward trend from the previous quarters.
Winbond Electronics Corp (華邦電) and Powerchip Semiconductor Manufacturing Corp (力積電) saw their DRAM revenue sequentially rise 13 percent and 4.4 percent respectively last quarter, TrendForce said.
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