By Joyce Yang, Marketing Intelligence Team, DRAMeXchange With stronger demand from PC OEMs customers and constrained supply after allocating more capacities to NAND flash products, two Korean makers have reduced their DRAM supply to spot market since early July. Samsung also raised their original module price for DDR256MB up to $24. Also, one major supplier of eTT (UTT) parts have limited supply to their module house customers and distributors after selling a big portion to one biggest module house in the world.
DRAM mainstream chip, DDR 256Mb 32Mbx8 400/333MHz prices were up nearly 8% from $2.45 in July 5 to $2.64 in July 12, 2005. eTT prices went up 8.25% from $2.30 to $2.49 during ythe same period.
According to sources, most DRAM official distributors can't fulfill their module house customers' requirement since early July. Module houses turned more aggressive in accumulating more inventory in worry of rising prices. Also, some traders have traded in DDR chips for a speculation. However, some traders also sold their DDR chips to the market for a profit taking.
We believe DDR 256Mb 32Mx8 spot prices will remain on upward trend toward $3.0, however, the up momentum may turn softer in the coming week as marketers turn cautious on chasing the DDR chips and some traders will be willing to sell the parts for a profit taking. We expect DDR prices resume another wave of up momentum till the end of July. We forecast DDR 256Mb 32Mx8 spot price reach the range of $2.75 to $2.85 in August if DRAM supply turns tighter.
DDR 512Mb was up 5.75% while DDR2 512Mb went down 0.8%
With stronger demand and less supply on DDR 512Mb 64Mx8, its price went up 5.75% from $5.22 in July 5 to $5.52 in July 12. In contrast, DDR2 512Mb demand still remained low and its price went slightly down 0.8% from $5.18 to $5.14. We believe the demand for DDR2 modules in spot market won't pick up until DDR2 667MHz chipset ready to the market. However, as some DRAM makers still have high low-yield DDR2 inventory to release to spot market, DDR2 512Mb spot prices will remain below DDR spot prices in the near future.
By Judy Chen, Marketing Intelligence Team, DRAMeXchange 2Gb NAND Flash spot price rebound 7%
This week's NAND Flash spot price is mixed with ups and downs. 512Mb and 2Gb spot prices went up 1% and 7%, respectively and leaving rest of the densities on a continuous down trend of 1-4%. Even though through our channel checks, demand is still soft, we have seen factory taking interest in 2Gb and 512Gb chips in small amounts. On the supply side, into the second week of July, last month's stock seem to have cleared out during this week. Thus, we see a little rebound in these two chips. However, we believe with the coming shipments from Korea in the coming weeks, spot prices will go back to down trend again for July.
Current NAND Flash spot price gaps between brands is up to 13% for 2Gb
We have observed a very interesting phenomenon since end of last month. NAND Flash spot price gaps for the two Korean suppliers started to enlarge. For the hot item this week, 2Gb chip, the gap can be up to 13% this week. We believe this is to do with different strategies. For the leading supplier, it's shifting more capacity to manufacture higher densities, thus with reduced supply for 2Gb, the price is certain to go up. However, with the smaller supplier, 2Gb is their biggest monolithic NAND Flash chip at the moment. In order for the smaller supplier to gain more market share, their strategy is to sell at a much lower price to gain a bigger installation rate. With the different strategies of these two Korean companies, demand side vendors are sure to gain from it.
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