DRAM module supplier Adata Technology Co (威剛科技) expects memory chip supply constraints to persist through next year, further supporting a price uptrend in DRAM and NAND flash memory, company chairman Simon Chen (陳立白) said yesterday.
“We have been winning back former customers and secured new customers, who are lining up for our products since September last year,” Chen told an earnings conference at the company’s headquarters in Taipei’s Neihu District (內湖). “Lately, several large-scale cloud service providers approached us and requested to sign long-term supply agreements with Adata. This is a rare occurrence.”
Adata expects a NAND flash memory shortage to worsen in the second half of this year, as enterprises scale artificial intelligence (AI) inference tasks, which are driving increases in demand for enterprise solid-state drives, which use NAND flash memory to store data, he said.
Photo: Lisa Wang, Taipei Times
The price hikes of NAND flash memory are likely to outpace DRAM chips in the second half of this year, he said.
A major NAND flash memory supplier this quarter raised prices by 40 percent from last quarter, indicating that solid market demand and increasingly tight supply are here to stay, he said.
“NAND flash memory vendors are seeing their inventory drop to an unprecedentedly low level ranging from three to five weeks now,” Chen said.
As of this quarter, contract prices of DRAM and NAND flash memory have surged 215 percent and 509 percent to US$85 and US$20.15 per unit respectively from the third quarter last year, data compiled by TrendForce Corp (集邦科技) showed.
Severe chip shortages and price hikes helped boost Adata’s revenue in the first two months of this year, soaring 152 percent year-on-year to NT$15.58 billion (US$491.75 million).
“The chip supply crunch has transitioned the market into a seller’s market,” Chen said.
Adata had built up NT$30 billion of chip inventory as of the end of last month, which it would further raise to surpass NT$35 billion by the end of this month, he said.
The company procured a significant portion of the inventory in early days at a lower cost, he said.
“Adata is very optimistic about its revenue outlook this year,” Chen said. “We expect tremendous growth this year and a third growth year in a row.”
Last year, Adata’s revenue jumped 32.13 percent to NT$53.09 billion from NT$40.18 billion in 2024. DRAM-related products made up 61 percent of the total.
Net income soared 168 percent to NT$7.63 billion from NT$2.85 billion, while earnings per share rose to NT$23.18 from NT$9.27, the company said.
Its board of directors yesterday approved a cash dividend distribution plan of NT$17 per common share for last year, representing a payout ratio of 73 percent.
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