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 increased 23-28% in the first quarter, leading to an estimated 15-20% increase in Q2 2024, up from 13-18% previously. The only positive is that eMMC/UFS flash memory is only expected to increase by about 10% in Q2, although that is still a significant increase.

TrendForce blamed the April 3 earthquake in Hualien, Taiwan, for the sudden and uncontrolled price increase. Before the earthquake, the selling price of memory chips and flash memory was expected to increase only slightly due to the remaining inventory at PC manufacturers and the unwillingness of buyers to accept the continuous price increase.

However, after the earthquake, PC manufacturers began to accept a sharp increase in memory chip and flash memory contract prices 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 at a much higher rate 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 high-bandwidth memory HBM, 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 accelerate price increases.

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 memory.

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