In August, we published a forecast from TrendForce, which predicted falling prices for RAM and SSDs. Among the reasons were the reduced demand for chips for NAND and DRAM due to COVID-19 and the decline in consumer electronics sales, which are interconnected. Another reason is the US sanctions against Huawei.
Now it has become clear that this forecast is justified - prices have been falling since October, and according to experts, this trend will continue for several months. The final price reduction will be 10-15%, but the negative trend is already noticeable. Compared to September prices, the cost of 8GB PC DDR4 RAM chips fell 8.9% . Now the wholesale price for such a chip is $ 2.85 (average of the day's session).
Previously, prices did not fall so quickly, as Huawei bought SSD and RAM in reserve, immediately after it became known about tough US sanctions. BUT, as soon as this massive purchase came to an end, economic and some other problems began to put pressure on the price factor. There is more PC DRAM on the market now than manufacturers require, which means prices continue to fall.
In addition to RAM, wholesale prices for NAND chips continued to decline in October 2020. For example, the cost of chips with a capacity of 128 Gbit (16x8G MLC) for flash cards and USB drives decreased by 3.4% compared to September, down to $ 4.2. This, according to analysts , is the lowest since the beginning of this year.
It is not the first time that prices for memory have fallen this year - a fairly active negative trend in this market was observed this summer. Then prices decreased by about 5%, the factors are about the same as now - a decrease in demand for chips by electronics manufacturers and, accordingly, an oversupply of these chips on the market.
The forecast was recently supported by Samsung. Its representatives, talking about the financial results of the campaign for the third quarter of this year, shared their forecast regarding prices for memory. Like TrendForce, Samsung firmly believes memory prices will come down.
Previously, analysts assumedthat at the end of the year, prices for memory and SSD will rise, as it has happened many times before. The market showed a cyclical rhythm - periods of falling prices were interspersed with growth. Indeed, in the first quarter of 2020, prices increased by 5%, in the next - by another 5-10%. Experts expected the trend to continue until the end of 2020. But this forecast did not come true.
By the way, analysts do not take into account one more fact in the current forecast - the release of productive chips based on the new technology, including 128-L NAND chipsets. SK Hynix announced the first 1TB consumer SSD based on this technology with over 3500MB / s read speed. As a result, manufacturers of computer devices focus on new elements and systems, reducing purchases of old ones.
There is a spoonful of honey in this barrel of ointment, but only electronics buyers will be able to use it - they will be able to save money, since the price of laptops, desktop PCs and other systems that use DRAM and NAND will fall. Probably at the end of this year, the cost of storage and RAM will drop to lows, so that buying electronics will cost less than before.
