The collapse of demand, although predictable, has triggered a panic in the markets. In many categories, we have gone from underproduction to overproduction in just a few months. The ram industry seems particularly affected. Trendforce has made some projections that are explicit enough to anticipate a significant price drop in the next few months for ram. Indeed, for DRAM chips, in 2022 supply will be 1.1% higher than the previous year, while at the same time demand will fall by 6. 2%. But it is in 2023 that the overcapacity will be even more obvious, a situation that “forces” manufacturers to play on prices to quickly sell off their production.
An unavoidable fall in the price of ram
In addition to this situation, international uncertainties, especially around Taiwan, could possibly modulate this downward effect. However, without taking too much risk, we can anticipate a drop in Ram of between 8% and 13% and perhaps even more if demand does not take off again in 2023. For SSDs, visibility is more cloudy. On the one hand, the best performing SSDs use a DRAM controller, which will be cheaper for the reasons mentioned above, but NAND Flash may be only slightly affected by the price drop. So the drop in SSDs could be more measured. Obviously, many of us are expecting a drop, especially in anticipation of the developments that will lead to a switch to DDR5. However, beware of the international context and the €/$ exchange rate, which has deteriorated considerably in recent months.