‘Ssd prices fall at the beginning of 2018 due to surplus nand memory’

According to market researcher DramExchange, the price of products based on nand memory will fall early next year, because the researcher expects a surplus of memory. In particular, this could result in cheaper SSDs.

The expected surplus of nand memory is due to lower demand. DramExchange expects that in the first quarter of 2018, that demand will be 15 percent lower than in the fourth quarter of 2017. Especially the demand from Chinese smartphone brands would decrease. Demand is usually low in the first quarter of the year, while the fourth quarter peaks.

At the same time, NAND memory manufacturers are said to be constantly improving and increasing their production capacity, because the general trend is for the memory to be in greater demand. Suppliers’ output would be 5 percent higher in the first quarter of next year, compared to the end of this year.

This overproduction probably results in lower prices of SSDs. Nand memory is found in many more products, such as smartphones, tablets and laptops, but SSDs are the most sensitive to price drops because they consist almost exclusively of nand memory. It is not clear how strong the price decline will be.

DramExchange expects that demand for nand memory will also be lower than supply in the second quarter of 2018, so that the price decline could continue. From the second half of the year, when the ‘peak season’ starts, prices are likely to rise again, because then, for example, many new smartphones come out and they are expected to have a higher storage capacity than current models, which in turn increases the demand for nand memory. rise.

In the first quarter of this year, there was a shortage of nand memory, because manufacturers were busy with the switch from 2D to 3D nand and because Chinese manufacturers such as Huawei, Oppo and Vivo suddenly bought much more nand memory. According to DramExchange, prices of SSDs, for example, rose by more than 10 percent.