In October, DRAM and NAND prices suffered a collective plunge. Analysts believe that this is due to the US sanctions against Huawei, which exacerbated the decline in prices in the memory chip market.
According to a report by market research firm DRAM Exchange on October 30, PC DRAM (DDR4 8Gb) was trading at a fixed price of $2.85 as of the end of October, down 8.9 percent from September.
This is in contrast to August and September, which remained flat for the second consecutive month. For NAND flash memory, 128GB memory cards and multi-level cellular (MLC) products for USB were fixed at $4.20 in October, down 3.4 percent from September. It was also the lowest NAND fixed trade price this year.
DRAM prices were down 5% in July. Analysts attribute this to the impact of the new crown epidemic on PCs and servers in the first half of the year, while inventories at major semiconductor companies have been increasing.
Market research firm TrendForce predicts that the PC DRAM glut will continue through the end of the year.
Huawei launches Mate40 series in China, prices start at about $750
In addition, the average selling price of PC DRAM (ASP) is expected to drop by 10 percent in the fourth quarter of this year after the US imposed sanctions on Huawei.
In the third quarter of this year, Huawei had made large purchases to build up inventory before the sanctions were imposed, which indirectly drove the outflow of inventory and delayed the timing of the price cuts.
In addition, Samsung Electronics said in a conference call on the 29th that "despite strong demand for laptops and mobile phones, memory demand in the fourth quarter will continue to weaken as customers adjust their inventories."
Trend Force analysts believe that NAND is a relatively less affected market by Huawei and that NAND prices have not declined significantly due to increased demand for 5G networks in the country (South Korea) and growth in sales of communication network products.
Samsung Display reportedly gets US licenses to supply panels to Huawei
