According to the latest survey by DRAMeXchange of TrendForce, the average price of DRAM in the fourth quarter still fell slightly compared with the previous quarter, but the decline has narrowed to about 5%. Compared with the first month of the previous quarter, the transaction volume in October was significantly larger, indicating that the buyer’s willingness to purchase is gradually increasing. Once suppliers’ inventories are reduced, the need for price reductions will drop significantly, which will help DRAM prices stabilize and rebound in 2020.

In response to recent market news that may affect the supply side, such as Samsung’s plan to restart and expand production, and China’s DRAM factory to increase film production in 2020, TrendForce believes that Samsung has no plans to increase film production in the first half of next year. The current capital expenditure plan It is only for the purchase of a new machine, which is used to transfer to the 1Znm process. SK Hynix recently reiterated that it will reduce its capital expenditure for next year, which means that the growth of supply bits next year will be slower than this year. Although Micron semiconductor has not officially announced its capital expenditure plan for next year, it is expected to be more conservative than this year.

In terms of the development of China’s DRAM industry, although Hefei Changxin has announced that it will officially introduce mass production by the end of the year, the initial capacity planning is still very conservative. A period of learning curve will have limited contribution to the growth of the overall DRAM industry’s bit supply in 2020.

The momentum of the spot market has been weak recently, and the price has fallen below this year’s new low

Compared with the contract market, the momentum of the spot market is much weaker. Since the trading volume of the spot market has shrunk significantly, prices are prone to violent fluctuations due to market news, such as the surge in consecutive days caused by the impact of the Japan-South Korea trade war in mid-July. However, after Japan approved and opened the import of chemical raw materials to South Korea, the doubts about DRAM supply disappeared, and the spot price showed a trend of small daily decline. In late October, it fell below the new low before the surge in July.

TrendForce believes that the current spot price trend is still within the expected range. As long as the contract price trend is stable and the demand side has not seen a major downward revision, the weak short-term spot price trend will not affect the overall market conditions in the future.