‘Samsung reduces investments in dram production for 2021’

Samsung appears to be cutting its investments in dram production. That is what sources from Korean news site Chosun Biz say. The site speculates that this is being done to counter further price drops of memory chips.

According to previous reports, Samsung, which produces memory for smartphones and PCs, among other things, initially planned to increase its monthly dram production capacity by approximately 40,000 wafers, but Chosun Biz reports that this will be reduced to an increase of 30,000 wafers per month. Samsung’s semiconductor division reportedly announced its investment plan for 2021 at a strategic meeting within the company.

Chosun Biz writes that the released production capacity will be used for the production of camera sensors. With this, the company would like to counteract the price drops of memory chips. The dram prices have been at a low level for some time. The Korean news site writes that prices rose temporarily at the beginning of this year due to the outbreak of the new corona virus, but fell again later.

Dram prices are expected to rise again next year. In addition to the reduced investments, the demand for memory is also expected to increase in 2021. Chosun Biz writes that the first signs for this are already visible. For example, the stocks that large memory producers have on hand would meanwhile fall. Samsung’s stock would be good for less than two weeks, while SK Hynix has less than a week’s worth of memory chips in stock.