Employees of Samsung Electronics Co. check equipment of the clean room of its semiconductor production facility. (image: Samsung Electronics)
SEOUL, Sept. 1 (Korea Bizwire) — DRAM prices in the spot market have recently been declining amid expectations for weaker demand stemming from widening COVID-19 vaccinations around the globe, industry sources said Wednesday.
According to market tracker DRAMeXchange, the average contract price of 8-gigabit DDR4 DRAMs for PCs came to US$3.889 on Monday, the lowest level in seven months.
It was also down 36.8 percent from this year’s high of $5.3 at the end of March.
Spot prices of PC DRAMs topped the $4 mark in February before soaring to the $5 level in March and April.
But they fell to the $4 range later amid expectations that increased coronavirus vaccinations could lead to people doing more outdoor activities and weaken demand for PCs.
Industry watchers put forward a rather gloomy outlook for prices of PC DRAMs down the road.
In a survey published Tuesday, market researcher TrendForce said the fixed price for 8-gigabit DDR4 DRAMs for PCs came to $4.1 in August, unchanged from the prior month.
Making matters worse for memory chip makers, TrendForce also expected prices of server DRAMs to start dropping from the fourth quarter of this year due to increased customer stocks.
That contrasts with expectations from memory giants Samsung Electronics Co. and SK hynix Inc. that corporate demand for server DRAMs, including data centers, would lead the memory market’s growth in the second half.
Samsung and SK hynix are the world’s two largest DRAM makers with a combined market share of more than 70 percent.
In addition, there are growing expectations among local analysts that DRAM prices may hit a ceiling during the third quarter of the year and peak out in the fourth quarter.
Yet DRAM prices are unlikely to drop at a rapid pace in light of solid demand and strong market fundamentals, they added.
(Yonhap)
