DRAMeXchange division of TrendForce another observation. TrendForce is a trading platform for concluding contracts for the supply of NAND memory and products based on it. The DRAMeXchange group, based on these data and taking into account the anonymity, provides a fairly accurate forecast of price behavior in the short term and even for relatively long periods of time. Fresh data and consideration of the market situation, as well as the production plans of Samsung, SK Hynix, Intel and Micron, give DRAMeXchange analysts reason to draw an interesting conclusion. Until the end of this year, experts say, the price for each gigabyte of SSD with a capacity of 512 GB and 1 TB will drop to 10 US cents and even lower. This will be an all-time low for SSD prices.
Reducing the cost of 512 GB SSD to $ 50 or even less will make this product the second most popular after 256 GB SSD drives. At the same time, 512 GB SSD models will replace the previously popular 128 GB models. Another concomitant trend is the price reduction of mainstream PCI Express SSDs to the level of SATA SSDs. This phenomenon will cause PCIe SSD penetration to exceed 50%.
SSD usage in laptops, according to TrendForce, exceeded 50% back in 2018. Contract prices for 128, 256 and 512 SSDs have fallen by 2017% since their peak in 50 and have every chance of dropping below 10 cents per gigabyte towards the end of this year. This encourages system builders and users to move away from 512 GB and 1 TB hard drives, which is clearly manufacturer of motors for HDD Japanese company Nidec. Thus, the adaptation of SSD in PC in 2019 will reach 60-65%.
In the second quarter of 2019, the average contract price for SSDs declined for the 6th consecutive quarter. Thus, the average contract prices for mass SATA SSDs for OEM computers fell by 15-26% over the quarter, and the average contract prices for PCIe SSDs decreased by 16-37%. Both overproduction and high inventory levels, as well as competition in the market and relatively sluggish demand for drives, are to blame for the price decline. At the same time, most manufacturers switched to using 64/72-layer 3D NAND, and Intel began dumping using 3D NAND QLC (with four bits per cell). In the third quarter, new Apple products promise to revive demand in the NAND market, but analysts do not expect any price increase, just a further reduction in the cost of NAND memory and products may slow down somewhat. And yet, the bottom line is that analysts are promising "delicious" prices for 512GB and 1TB SSDs before this year is over. It remains to believe and wait a bit.
Source: 3dnews.ru