The NAND Flash market remained in undersupply in the first quarter of 2017 as it had been in the preceding quarter, according to the latest report from DRAMeXchange, a division of TrendForce. Despite seasonality, the average contract price of NAND Flash chips in the channel market actually surged by 20~25% in the first quarter compared with last year’s fourth quarter. Also, prices of mobile storage products such as eMCP, eMMC and UFS are still climbing. NAND Flash suppliers therefore can expect positive revenue outlook for the entire 2017.
Global shipments of enterprise-grade SSDs for the first quarter of 2017 grew against seasonal headwinds by 3~4% compared with the prior quarter to reach around 6 million units, says DRAMeXchange, a division of TrendForce. For the same quarter, enterprise-grade SSDs also represented more than 10% of the total SSD product shipments worldwide. Currently, U.S.-based Google, Facebook and Microsoft and China’s Baidu, Alibaba and Tencent all have voracious appetite for server systems as they are providing their services via their growing network of data centers. These companies therefore are contributing substantially to the global demand for enterprise-grade SSDs.
DRAMeXchange, a division of TrendForce, reports that the global mobile DRAM revenue for the first quarter of 2017 dropped slightly by 1.7% compared with the prior quarter. The smartphone market in the first quarter went through the conventional off season in the first quarter with the global device production volume declined by 23% from last year’s fourth quarter. On other hand, contract prices of mobile DRAM have kept climbing. These counteracting factors resulted in a small dip in the total mobile DRAM revenue.
The global DRAM revenue reached a new record high in the first quarter of 2017, reports DRAMeXchange, a division of TrendForce. Taking account of the severe supply shortage towards then end of 2016, most PC-OEMs started to negotiate first-quarter contracts in advance during last December. Their demand for sustained DRAM supply had resulted in an at least 30% increase in the average contract price of PC DRAM modules between the fourth quarter of 2016 and the first quarter of 2017. The effect of the price surge in the PC DRAM market spilled over onto the server and mobile DRAM markets. The prices of mobile DRAM products also grew by nearly 10% on average this first quarter compared with the preceding quarter.
Intel continues to dominate the market for mainstream server processors during this year’s first half with its global market share currently at above 90%, reports DRAMeXchange, a division of TrendForce. Though AMD and Qualcomm transitioned to the more cutting-edge manufacturing technologies such as the 14nm and the 10nm processes for their server solutions towards the end of last year, they will not be able to expand their market shares significantly in the short term. Intel’s competitors are still behind in developing third-party hardware and software support.