SDRAM remains strong while DDR gets softened
SDRAM is still on the rise due to limited supply and stronger demand.
The market momentum remained strong for SDRAM and may keep upturn to the end of the year. SDRAM 4Mx16,8Mx16 and 16Mx8 are traded 4%-5% higher than last week. Looking back to the starting of this uptrend from early September, SDRAM 1Mx16 / 4Mx16 has been up around 70% while SDRAM 16Mx8/ 32Mx8 are up 15.92% and 32.29% respectively. The prices are supported by the limited output from the supply side and stronger demand from consumer electronics such as DVD, set-up-box, DSC, switch-hub…etc. Now, the SDRAM spiraling prices in past months have attracted attentions from marketers, channel distributors as well as manufactures. This niche market of about 10% market share in proportion of DRAM market turned to be the most profitable section of DRAM industry. However, the fabless foundries and IDMs are still evaluating whether to increase output or allocate more capacities to this niche market. The concerns are , first, it takes about two months for the output. Second, demand in this niche market is easily to be fulfilled if only one increases the allocated capacity and it will turn oversupplied and drag the price down if two or more supplies take the same actions to increase output. Therefore, we believe the suppliers may remain cautious before the SDRAM 4Mx16 reaches high of $3.00.
DDR gets soften and down around 3% in past week
It has been quiet for days on DDR spot market as the absence of catalyst and quite stagnant market momentum and shrinking demand has stymied interest in past days' going. Contributing to DDR spiritless movement in spot market is the fact that the seasonal demand has past October peak and markets become more controlled on inventory level. We observed that there were short-term DDR upturn momentum shown in past month, however, they usually kept no stronger than one week then got softened. This may tells that marketers are still in upbeat mood but become more cautious as approaching the year end. From 11/4 to 11/11, 256Mb 32x8 DDR 400MHz was down 3.1% from $4.6 to $4.46; 333MHz was down 3.0% from $4.46 to $4.33; 266MHz was down from $4.39 to $4.26.
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