It is not only the rise in prices of NAND that is good for producers, that of DRAM products also allows manufacturers to see their prospects improve further. As usual, TrendForce delivered its analysis for the coming quarter, while taking stock of the quarter about to end. So, how does it look?
No luck if you are thinking about adopting a new configuration in the coming months. Whether it is for DDR3, DDR4 or DDR5, the transaction already looks potentially more expensive than it would have been today. On the server side, the increase should be more marked than for the DRAM of PC. The factors behind this development are a general demand that is increasing (but more in the server market than in the PC market, hence the more significant increase), simultaneously with a reduction in the share of DDR in production in favor of HBM memory. And it is also this renewed interest in HBM memory that will push the prices of DDR3 and DDR4 upwards. Even though RAM stocks/inventories are far from empty overall, the intention of the three main suppliers is clearly to push prices up.
Mobile DRAM and graphics DRAM should not escape these ambitions either. But in the case of GDDR, it is the arrival of the first samples of GDDR7 during the quarter which will in principle be the source of the price increase for this segment. The new generation, production of which has been launched and will increase as the new GPUs are finalized, is currently 20 to 30% more expensive than GDDR6.
Finally, in the longer term, TrendForce does not exclude that the ever-increasing share of the HBM memory in production at the expense of other memory types could push buyers to increase their stocks in anticipation of potential shortages in 2025. In return, you can imagine that manufacturers would not fail to exploit these fears and would not hesitate to increase prices further for new contracts. Of course, this will also depend on other factors and the sales outlook for the end of the year and 2025. But, for the time being, we should expect this trend to continue… Let’s always keep in mind that TrendForce is naturally also quite capable of making mistakes! (Source: TrendForce, via TPU)
