The soaring price

From 9/15 to 9/21, the pricing performance for DDR and NAND Flash astonished marketers' anticipation. DDR 400/333/266 increased 2.05%, 2.38% and 0.97% to $4.48, $4.31and $4.18 respectively. As for NAND Flash, since Samsung used 1G and 2G to assemble 4G and 8G, the shrinking volume of 1G/2G pushed the spot prices up. On Monday, 9/20, the price for Flash 1G/2G even closed up 3.34% and 5.29% to $9.90 and $19.50.Furthermore, it seemed that prices for low density SDRAM, 1Mx16 and 4Mx16, caught up with the bearish market rebounding slightly.

Generally speaking, prices were lifted by Samsung's strategy-changing that contract market will be the first priority, keeping the good relationship with PC OEMs, reducing their products in spot market, and his flexible product mix between DDR, SDRAM, Flash even DDR 2. Besides, sources said that some DRAM manufacturers faced the difficulties on process-migrating and poor yield rate. Whether it is rumor or not, limited supply will be the key to the next price uptrend, as the demand is emerging.

Recently, the downturned price for TFT-LCD has made PC OEMs increase their budget for purchasing DRAM. The demand from United States and European market is very healthy. A DRAM maker even represented that they didn't have enough productivity to digest customers' booking orders till October. In Chinese market, with the coming of October long vacation, from 10/1 to 10/10, marketers may collect their inventories before the end of September.

According to our market intelligence survey and forecast, the MoM for MB and NB shipment in September will be 8.8 % and 10.3%, while the global DDR sufficiency -6.40%. The negative figure, undersupply and long-vacation effect made us hold the optimistic view of spot price in the short term.

DRAM spot prices - 2004/9/14~2004/9/21

Bonnie Lin,Marketing Intelligence Team, DRAMeXchange