Inflation weakened consumer demand for operational memory and smoothed seasonal surges, found out by TrendForce analysts. In the third quarter of 2022, the supply of DRAM chips fell again, forcing suppliers to build up stocks.
In the DRAM market, manufacturers will have to make efforts to reduce their storage capacity because of the weak demand for laptops, while chip production continues to increase, and prices are expected to drop by 13-20% in the fourth quarter. It is noted that DDR5 will be cheaper than DDR4 already this quarter. The more expensive DDR5 in the PC market will increase by 13-15%, and the average price will drop by 10-15%.
In the server segment of the DRAM procurement, owing to the delay in the release of the new Intel platform, the delivery of servers may also decrease in the fourth quarter. The server memory reserves will remain maximum for 9–12 weeks. The memory producers are trying to switch from reduced OEM manufacturers and Chinese cloud providers to consumers in the United States cloud services, and by the end of the year the prices of products may fall. The quarterly decline in server memory prices may be at the PC segment level, ranging from 13 to 18 per cent.
In the mobile segment, similar processes are expected. Smartphone manufacturers continue to review production plans downward, and this makes it more difficult to reduce mobile DRAM stocks. But given the need for advanced solutions, the mobile market is increasing its contribution to increasing the production of memory chips. As a result, mobile DRAM prices in the fourth quarter will fall by the same 13-18% and will continue to decline further.
The prices of Graphics DRAM will, of course, depend on the price of the video cards, and the latter are expected to decline. The demand for GDR68 and 16 Gbyte has declined; it has not been saved by the drop in prices in the third quarter. Both chip suppliers in Samsung and SK hynix will actively compete for orders through aggressive price policies.
The DRAM market has recovered with the reduction of chip shortages and the modernization of infrastructure in Europe and the United States, but it has proved difficult to compensate for the decline in demand for other final products. Some producers have tried to reprofiling old lines into other products, but without much success, the demand for image sensors has also declined. The drop in DRAM prices in the consumer segment in the fourth quarter is 10-15%.