The DRAM market became highly profitable last year after transforming into an oligopoly, according to DRAMeXchange, the memory and storage research division of TrendForce. The entire Q1 industry value grew 2% QoQ to reaching new heights at US$ 9.94 Billion. SK Hynix, one of the industry's largest DRAM manufacturers, managed to show a highly noteworthy performance following its recovery from last year's fire accident with operating margin growth jumping from 29% to 36%. As other DRAM manufacturers display similarly impressive performances this year, 2014 is considered an optimal for the entire DRAM industry, TrendForce predicts that the total DRAM industry value will grow 30% YoY to approximately US$ 45 Billion.
Before China’s Labour Day Holiday, the willingness to re-stock NAND Flash components was relatively low according to DRAMeXchange. This is mainly due to the module clients’ conservative attitude towards the future market sales performances and the UFD and Memory cards’ continuous price decline. To prevent profit margins tightening, NAND Flash suppliers began avoiding aggressive price strategies, and became increasingly less willing to give in to their clients’ pricing demands. With market transactions becoming sluggish, as a result, NAND Flash contract prices ended up staying flat throughout the second half of April.
The DRAM market’s transactions have become sluggish starting from 2014, according to DRAMeXchange, memory and storage research division of TrendForce. The spot market vendors and module suppliers' relatively low inventories, DRAM manufacturers' gradual transition from PC DRAM to Mobile DRAM, and market shortages are all key factors affecting the spot market price movements.
Global smartphone shipments reached 266.9 million units in 1Q14, due to the strong TD-LTE shipments from China. “At present, the market’s demand momentum is expected to persist into 2Q14 and help smartphone shipments grow by 6.7% QoQ,” said Avril Wu, Assistant Vice President and Analyst at DRAMeXchange.
The willingness to purchase NAND Flash components was relatively low in first half of April due to the module clients’ conservative attitude towards China’s May 1st Holiday sales performances and sufficient inventory levels, according to DRAMeXchange.