According to our observation, the surging price indicated that the whole DDR market performed well again. By all accounts, the DRAM vendors faced production problems and raised the official price. The DDR prices remained high this week. From September 20th to 24th, the price range of the DDR 32Mbit x 8 333/400MHz was somewhere between USD$4.58 to USD$4.66 and USD$4.35 to USD$4.41. The major demand came from the US module houses. Traders kept looking for the DDR 32Mbit x 8 400/333MHz aggressively.

Because of the strong demand for the DRAM modules, PC OEMs began to build inventory and prepared for the seasonal demand. This action will elevate the spot prices through October. In addition to the influence of the undersupply in the DDR spot market, after the end of the long Chinese vacation, the increasing demand shall inspire an optimistic outlook of the spot price soon.

Compare to the DDR market, the slight demand has slowed down the price of SDRAM. On September 24, there was only a tiny demand from PC OEMs, focused on the1Mbit x 16 166MHz and the 4Mbit x 16 143MHz SDRAM. The price of the 1Mbit x 16 166MHz closed at USD$0.69, up 2.94%.The 4Mbit x 16 143MHz remained stable around USD$1.58.

As far as the Flash spot market is concerned, some module houses and consumer electronics companies announced that they reached their target sales revenue at the end of this month. In other words, this meant that the Flash demand was better than ever before. In our opinion, most traders were desperate to get the 2G Flash which is short in these days. The price of the 2G Flash was from USD$19.5 to USD$23.30, up 6.29%. Meanwhile, the price of the1G Flash was from USD$8.89 to USD$9.40, up 2.17%. A few days ago, some buyers were wondering that the DRAM vendors have restrained the supply of merchandise and led the price up. In the case of the price trend next week, we forecast that the price of the 2G and 4G Flash will be with an upward tendency due to the increasing demand, on the contrary, the 1G and 8G Flash will be in a slightly downtrend.

*Jamie Lo,Marketing Intelligence Team, DRAMeXchange

DRAM spot prices - 2004/9/21~2004/9/28