Continuing the reversal of the trend at the end of 2023, TrendForce had already set the tone for the new year in January. Unfortunately, it turns out that the analyst had been a little too optimistic and as nothing really worked out in the meantime, a new prophecy had to be fulfilled and this one we will appreciate even less! In fact, we must now prepare ourselves mentally to have to pay ever more, because it should not improve in any way over the coming months, unfortunately. In any case, this is the conclusion that everyone will come to in view of the new forecasts of price increases for NAND and DRAM concocted by TrendForce.
For what ? The first factor would have been the famous earthquake in Taiwan. If TSMC did not suffer too much and the analyst for his part had estimated a more than moderate impact on the production of other Taiwanese players, obviously, it was nevertheless a favorable opportunity to inflict more drastic increases than expected during the latest negotiations. In any case, this is what TrendForce was able to observe at the end of April. Behind all this, there would be a desire on the part of buyers to maintain the value of their stocks, but also to anticipate the growth of the AI market, and therefore of demand. There would also be conflict between HBM memory and other types of products for the allocation of wafers and production capacities. As we have seen, HBM currently has the wind at its back, driven by the success of accelerators for AI in particular. Thus, producers like Samsung prefer to favor the production of HBM rather than DDR5, which is not difficult to understand given the current level of profitability of this type of memory.
At the same time, some suppliers are also limiting capital investments for the production of other types of products such as NAND, with HBM again having priority. Finally, it turns out that QLC NAND is also currently a victim of its success, particularly among businesses. Faced with inventories sometimes liquidating quickly, suppliers would hesitate to sell to avoid ending up dry and undoubtedly with the idea of being able to sell what remains at a higher price afterwards.
In short, if you wanted SSD or DDR5 at the best price, it was last summer, or at the latest during Black Friday 2023, that you probably should have bought all of that. Not that prices are necessarily systematically excessive at the moment, we are not there yet. But the last trough of the wave is now well behind us… Of course, let’s keep in mind that this is only a forecast, certainly informed, but also that nothing is ever set in stone.
