SSD And Flash Drive Prices Set To Fall As Impending NAND Price-Cut Beckons

NAND flash contract prices are expected to dip in Q4 of 2013 despite a pre-emptive reduction in global NAND supply according to industry sources speaking to Digitimes. The reason being is that demand has been too low so there is over supply despite NAND vendors reducing their supply.

“The global supply of NAND flash has reduced due to chipmakers’ strategic moves to allocate more capacity for DRAM products. Nonetheless, end-market demand for NAND flash has fallen at a faster pace than the pace of contraction in the supply, the sources said.”

Samsung have reportedly moved some of their NAND capacity to the manufacturing of DRAM after global supply to a brief hit with the SK Hynix fabrication plant fire back in early September. Most other NAND vendors are doing the same as DRAM has become more profitable than NAND given current market conditions

“end-market demand for NAND flash has been weaker than expected thus far in the fourth quarter, the sources observed. Sales of high-end smartphones continue to disappoint, dragging down overall NAND flash demand, the sources said.”

The forecast for 2014 is also bad for NAND vendors (but good for consumers) as NAND oversupply is predicted with new chipmaker capacity expected to come online in 2014. The end result is that consumers should see prices for NAND based products (flash drives, SSDs, high capacity smartphones, etc…) start to fall quite rapidly later on this year.

Image courtesy of Samsung