On May 8, Elpida revealed Micron as the winner of bidding for the right to negotiate exclusively to buy the Japanese DRAM maker. Three major DRAM teams are emerging in the industry - after Micron and Elpida have integrated, their combined market share will bring the Micron team’s figure (Micron, Inotera, Elpida, and Rexchip) to nearly 24%, surpassing SK Hynix’s 23.9% to become second only to memory giant Samsung.The tri-national alliance will combine the strengths of each – Micron’s flash products, Elpida’s mobile DRAM, and the Taiwanese makers’ manufacturing skills – presenting a formidable opponent to the Korean heavyweights. The DRAM industry is officially headed towards becoming an oligopolistic market with three major players dominating the industry. This will help DRAM chip price gradually return to a healthy state, and the competitive price-slashing will be a thing of the past...
Due to uncertainties concerning global economic recovery, many NAND Flash suppliers are conservative towards the 1H12 market. Therefore, to strengthen cost competitiveness, 1H12 bit growth will mainly be focused on process technology migration in order to help reduce oversupply and ease the impact of price decreases on profitability. Beginning in 2H12, 300mm wafer capacity will be added according to market demand. Mainstream process technology will advance from the 2xnm class in 2H11 to the 2ynm class in 2H12. TrendForce forecasts global NAND Flash bit supply volume will grow by 70.6% YoY, from 9,181 M 16Gb equiv. in 2011 to 15,663 M 16Gb equiv...
Samsung’s mobile DRAM market share was 54%, helping Korean makers take nearly 75% of the global market. Due to the rising popularity of smartphones and tablet PCs, first-tier DRAM makers increased their mobile DRAM output ratios. With continuously strong mobile DRAM shipments, Samsung was the sole semiconductor manufacturer to remain profitable in 4Q11. As for mobile DRAM price, 4Q11 saw a 10% QoQ decrease, with LPDDR2 8Gb ASP at approximately US$17.4. As 1Q12 coincides with the traditional weak shipment season, mobile DRAM price will continue on the downtrend and is expected to decrease by 15-20%...
Negatively impacted by the uncertainty of global economic recovery, many suppliers are relatively conservative towards the 1H12 market. Thus, 1H12 bit output growth will depend mainly on process technology migration in order to strengthen cost competitiveness. New 300mm wafer capacity will be not added until 2H12, depending on the status of the market at the time, in order to close the gap between NAND flash supply and demand and reduce the impact of price decline on profitability...
The global DRAM industry’s total revenue for 3Q was approximately US$6.566 billion. Due to weak economies worldwide and a severe oversupply situation, DDR3 4GB average contract price fell from US$31 to US$19.5, a decrease of nearly 37%. DRAM makers’ total revenue decreased significantly, by 19.4% QoQ. Besides Samsung Semiconductors, all other DRAM manufacturers reported losses for 3Q. Additionally, DRAM makers actively transitioned to the 30nm-node process and the production of DDR3 4Gb chips. The sufficiency ratio for 1H12 will still be over 15%, which will stimulate capacity cuts or even mergers in the DRAM industry...
Negatively affected by worldwide economic factors, shipment performance for system products such as smartphones and tablet PCs was not as expected in 2Q11...
According to DRAMeXchange, a research division of TrendForce, total revenue for the global DRAM industry in 2Q11 was approximately US$8.1 billion. Although DRAM ASP (average selling price) increased slightly due to expectations of supply disruption from the Japan earthquake, ProMOS’s decrease in wafer start volume and Powerchip’s increase of non-DRAM products caused overall revenue to decrease slightly, 1.9% from 1Q11...
Benefiting from the explosive growth of smartphone and tablet, the NAND Flash consumption of built-in system products will surpass 50% and reach 60.4% of the total consumption, according to DRAMeXchange. Such a growth suggests that the NAND Flash industry will be depending more and more on system products such as smartphone, media tablet and SSD instead of memory card and UFD for its future growth momentum...
DRAMeXchange expects that the supply bit growth of NAND Flash suppliers in 2011 will be mainly driven by the upgrade of manufacturing process, and 300mm wafer capacity will be increased according to the market demand in order to maintain the balance of NAND Flash market and alleviate the impact of price decline...
According to DRAMeXchange, a research department of Trendforce, despite 30% contract price drop, 1Q11 worldwide DRAM revenue merely declined 4% to US$8.3bn from US$8.6bn due to the 15% output increase...