The DDR spot market remained under pressure with the price of the DDR 400 32Mbit*8 dropping nearly 2% to a low of US$3.85 after Hynix released its inventory to the market. Market players were cautious over the variety of the market next week. They showed that the tendency of the future market will perform optimistically until Jan 2005. As the year is coming to an end soon, vendors are under pressure to clean up their inventory in order to meet sales targets. Moreover, the tumbling U.S. dollar cast more gloom to the DRAM manufacturers who have no choice but to unload a large pile of unsold inventories.

The consumer electronics market was lackluster. Sales growth only improved slightly despite higher volumes than the first half of the year. Samsung, the world top DRAM manufacturer, tries to lower the prices of low-density SDRAM as it expands production to take advantage of economies of scale. DRAM wafer makers and SDRAM IC design houses also rushed to dump their stocks to mitigate the loss.

NAND Flash 2G and 4G took center stage in the market this week. Samsung has trimmed the contract prices to stimulate sales, sources said. As shown in chart I, the prices began a downturn in August after major Flash manufacturers expanded their production to meet growing demand. However, buying interest is on the wane as the end of the year draws near.