South Korean sources citing a yet-to-be-published regular report from TrendForce's DRAMeXchange group that contract prices for memory continue to fall at an enviable rate. The peak of the rise in price of DRAM chips occurred in December 2017. Back then, 8-Gb DDR4 chips cost $9,69 per chip. At the moment, reports DRAMeXchange, the same memory chip costs $4,11.
During the first quarter of 2019, DRAM became 35,2% cheaper on average. For this, we must thank the decrease in demand for memory and the accumulated excess inventory. Analysts do not believe that surpluses and overproduction will be overcome in the second and third quarters, although memory manufacturers are counting on these positive processes for them as early as August. And there is something to fear. The report of Samsung Electronics for the first three months of this year turned out to be sad for shareholders and investors. Samsung operating income for the year by about 60%, which the company mainly blames on lower memory prices. According to the source, this state of affairs with the prices of memory is extremely worried about the authorities of the Republic of Korea. Deliveries of DRAM contribute to the country's budget so significantly that the government immediately began to develop measures to save the situation with exports.
In the second quarter, DRAMeXchange expects mobile DRAM wholesale prices to drop by up to 15% and server memory prices to drop by up to 20%. In the second half of the year, analysts still expect a decrease in the rate of price decline, which is in harmony with the expectations of memory manufacturers. It will be interesting to know how things stand with the revenue of SK Hynix. This company has not yet reported data on work in the first quarter of this year. We are waiting for information.
Source: 3dnews.ru