NAND Market Cooling Further

发布时间:2018-08-03 00:00
作者:Ameya360
来源:EE Times
阅读量:1204

After a banner year in 2017, the NAND flash market continues to cool significantly in 2018. Analysts say that the shortages of NAND parts that persisted throughout last year have given way to oversupply, resulting in significant price erosion.

According to TrendForce, a research firm that tracks memory chip pricing, the average selling price of NAND flash is expected to decline by 10 percent in the third quarter and another 10 percent in the fourth quarter. Noting that the third quarter typically heralds the peak season for consumer electronics sales, the firm says that demand has been weaker than expected. Meanwhile, the supply of 3D NAND flash continues to expand as suppliers improve yield rates and expand capacity.

Prices are also expected to continue declining in the first half of next year, which is traditional the slower time of year for electronics sales. Shipment forecasts for smartphones, notebooks and tablets are fairly conservative for the first half of 2019, according to TrendForce.

TrendForce blames oversupply at various levels for the persistent price declines. Smartphone shipments are not expected to grow meaningfully if at all this year, according to to the firm, and notebook shipments are expected to be relatively flat in the second half of the year after a strong first half. Competition also continues to be fierce in the server SSD market, which is flooded with product despite strong demand, according to TrendForce.

IC Insights — another market research firm — warned last month that NAND flash suppliers are overspending on capacity expansion, contributing to falling prices. While most of the five major NAND suppliers have said they believe that NAND bit volume demand growth will average about 40% per year over the next few years, the industry exceeded the amount of capital spending need to a support a 40% increase by 27% last year and is forecast to exceed the amount needed by another 41% this year.

"IC Insights believes that the risk for significantly overshooting 3D NAND flash market demand is very high and growing," the firm said in a report.

TrendForce noted that Toshiba’s new Fab 6 in the Yokkaichi, Japan, is scheduled to begin production next year. Most suppliers are working to make the transition from the 64/72-layer architecture to the 96-layer, which is expected to increase the overall output and keep the market in oversupply, according to TrendForce.

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NAND Flash Manufacturers to Cut Capex by 2% YoY in 2019 Due to Worsening Oversupply
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2019-01-11 00:00 阅读量:1087
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2018-11-20 00:00 阅读量:1133
Global NAND Flash Revenue Rose by 3.5% QoQ in 2Q18
DRAMeXchange, a division of TrendForce, reports that the global NAND Flash market has stayed in oversupply since the traditional slow season in 1Q18, resulting in an average drop of 15~20% in NAND Flash contract prices in 2Q18. On the other hand, NAND Flash bit shipments bounced back in 2Q18 as Chinese smartphone brands stocked up on high-density products.Looking ahead to 3Q18, there are noticeable signs that the demand growth will be limited despite the contributions from the traditional busy season. Shipments of mainstream consumer electronics products such as smartphones and notebooks during 3Q18 are not expected to increase significantly. Also, memory module makers will be carrying high levels of inventory. Therefore, DRAMeXchange analyst Ben Yeh notes that the average selling prices of NAND Flash products are expected to drop further by nearly 10%.Yeh notes that the ASP drops are not totally negative news for the industry. While the persistent oversupply during 2Q18 inevitably led to a further decline in prices, mobile device manufacturers took the opportunity to raise the storage specifications of their devices. As the result, products of 128GB or higher capacity have reached a penetration rate of over 10%. In the second half of this year, Chinese smartphone makers such as OPPO, Vivo and Xiaomi are expected to adopt uMCP actively, bringing the average content per box of mid-to-high-end smartphone models up to 256GB or even 512GB in 1H19.In the SSD market, the price reduction of NAND Flash would also improve the shipments of high-capacity (8TB, 16TB) applications for servers. 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How this alliance proceeds with capacity expansion may influence other suppliers’ decisions in this area as well.MicronMicron’s sales of high-density products for the mobile application nearly doubled in 2Q18 thanks to smartphone brands upgrading their devices. This result also led to changes in Micron’s strategy – the company will focus more on increasing the shipment share of mobile memory solutions while scaling back the shipment shares of chips and wafers that go to the channel market. Micron posted stellar sales result in the SSD market as well. In addition to raising the sales of Enterprise SSDs, the supplier will be promoting QLC 3D-NAND SSDs to further boost its high-density product shipments. Micron’s 2Q18 NAND Flash revenue rose by 7.6% QoQ to US$1.94 billion.IntelIn 2Q18, Intel still maintained a QoQ growth of more than 15% in its NAND Flash bit shipments on account of the steady growth of its server SSD sales. However, a greater part of the 2Q18 server SSD shipments is made up of low-price products due to the imbalance in Intel’s product mix. This actually led to a QoQ drop surpassing 6% in the supplier’s NAND Flash ASP. Intel nevertheless kept its NAND Flash revenue above the US$1 billion mark in 2Q18, posting an increase of 6.8% QoQ to US$1.08 billion.Intel also continues to work on its 3D XPoint and will likely be its leading advocate after the split with Micron. However, getting more customers to adopt this technology will be much more difficult if there is no other partner willing to invest in it.
2018-08-17 00:00 阅读量:1215
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