Since the beginning of this year, the price trend of DRAM market has far exceeded industry expectations. Originally, many analysts believed that after the surge in DRAM demand in the first quarter of this year, it will gradually return to stability in the second quarter. But the reality is just the opposite-the global market demand for DRAM supply from Samsung Electronics and SK Hynix has increased instead of falling, pushing the price to continue to climb.
At present, DRAM production capacity is facing structural tension. Although the two giants, Samsung Electronics and SK Hynix, account for more than 70% of the global DRAM market, they are shifting a lot of production capacity to high-bandwidth memory (HBM). Because the production line of HBM special DRAM is relatively fixed, the expansion space of general DRAM is severely squeezed, which leads to the shortage of market.
According to industry analysis, although the demand forecast of DRAM on PC side has been lowered, suppliers have reduced their shipments to PC manufacturers and memory module companies, and some manufacturers have to purchase at high prices due to insufficient quotas. It is estimated that the price of consumer-grade DRAM will also increase by 45%~50% in the second quarter. In March alone, the average price of DDR4 4Gb rose by more than 20%, while the prices of DDR3 and DDR2 also climbed by 20%~40%.
The soaring price of DRAM is intensifying the cost pressure of PC, smartphone and server manufacturers. The most affected are entry-level smartphones and low-end PC——–their memory costs account for a higher proportion of the overall cost, and the price pressure is particularly prominent. At the same time, server manufacturers are also fiercely competing for the high-capacity DDR5 memory module needed by AI servers, which further magnifies the imbalance between supply and demand in the entire memory industry.
