The trading activities turned sluggish in DRAM spot market in past week. Volume has been anemic all the week, and has left the market vulnerable to swing. DDR 256Mb 32Mx8 400/333/266 MHz were traded 2-3% lower to $4.34, $4.12 and $3.9 in the afternoon in Asian market.

Buyers are more cautious of trading in parts as they worry the rally in DDR spot prices is short lived. Hynix made DDR 32Mx8 333/266 MHz chips were suffered great selling pressure in the market. The prices for DDR 32Mx8 266MHz chips dip further as Chinese marketers switched their demand for 266MHz chips to 333MHz chips.

However, the demand for UTT chips and original modules was stronger compared to other memory products. UTT has been traded up to the range of $3.98 to $4.02 and Samsung original modules were hot items at the prices below $39.5.

We observe that the DRAM spot market participants hold mix view of future pricing trend. Even though some traders turn cautious about the DRAM pricing performance, some DRAM markers and modules houses still remain positive for the pricing trend in September and October, expecting a further rising in DDR spot prices.

Sources indicated that Samsung increased the DDR portion allocated to OEM customers and cut the DRAM supply to spot market in half. Currently, Samsung is the most aggressive on the projection of DDR2 market share to the end of 2004. Samsung quoted it expect to have 30% of DRAM output as DDR2 in Q4 2004. Another source said Dell is to apply DDR2 to 40% of its PC systems in Q4 2004 with a deal price of only 15% premium over DDR1 for DDR2 chips offered by Samsung. With higher yield rate, lower cost and more capacity compared with other DRAM makers, Samsung definitely will benefit most if DDR2 becomes mainstream earlier.

Nand flash 1Gb prices rebounded on September 1st and traded at $9.3 - $9.4 in the morning in Asian market but dropped to $9.1 in the afternoon as sources indicated Samsung will allocate more parts to the market in the coming Wednesday.

List 1 DRAM spot prices