RAM and SSD memory chip prices increase sharply

According to TrendForce's estimates, memory chip contract prices have increased by up to 20% in the first quarter of 2024. This has caused the company to adjust its expected memory chip price increase to 13-18% in the second quarter, instead of the slight increase of 3-8% as previously estimated.

Many unexpected factors cause SSD and RAM prices to increase faster than expected

The same is true for NAND flash memory, which rose 23-28% in the first quarter, bringing the estimate for Q2 2024 to around 15-20%, up from 13-18% previously. The only positive is that eMMC/UFS flash memory is only expected to grow around 10% in Q2, although that’s still a pretty big increase.

TrendForce blamed the April 3 earthquake in Hualien, Taiwan, for the sudden and out-of-control price increase. Before the earthquake, prices for memory chips and flash memory were expected to increase only slightly due to the remaining inventory at PC makers and buyers’ unwillingness to accept continued price increases.

However, after the earthquake, PC manufacturers began to accept a sharp increase in contract prices for memory chips and flash memory due to various considerations. In particular, at the end of April, a new round of contract negotiations was completed one after another, and the contract price negotiations were completed with an increase that was much higher than previously expected. On the one hand, manufacturers were willing to increase inventories, on the other hand, due to the continued increase in demand for AI (artificial intelligence).

It is worth noting that artificial intelligence has a large demand for HBM high-bandwidth memory, and OEMs are expanding production. For example, Samsung's HBM3E uses an advanced process and will significantly expand production in the third quarter. This capacity is expected to account for about 60% by the end of this year, which will overwhelm DDR5 production capacity and further push up prices.

Additionally, AI inference servers are increasingly focused on energy efficiency, favoring enterprise-grade QLC SSDs, which will also take up a significant amount of production capacity and lead to a shortage of consumer-grade NAND.

Source: https://thanhnien.vn/gia-chip-nho-ram-va-ssd-tang-manh-185240509141852198.htm