Institution: Consumer-grade LPDDR5X prices soared 89% in the second quarter, with AI memory squeeze effects spreading to the smartphone and PC markets

Mars Finance News, on June 23, market research firm SigmaIntell stated on the 22nd that due to supply and demand imbalances in memory, consumer storage product prices generally increased in the second quarter of this year.
Among them, low-power DRAM products saw particularly significant increases, with LPDDR4X 4GB prices rising 75% quarter-over-quarter, and LPDDR5X 12GB prices rising 89% quarter-over-quarter.
The background for this round of price increases is that LPDDR memory has begun to be used in next-generation server GPU platforms.
As NVIDIA Vera Rubin and other AI computing platforms adopt related low-power memory, supply competition has intensified further, and storage manufacturers have expanded the scope of price increases to consumer-grade memory used in smartphones and PCs.
SigmaIntell said some customers have already accepted the price hikes, and related changes have been reflected in market prices.
Supply-side pressure comes from capacity reallocation.
SigmaIntell indicated that in the second quarter, storage manufacturers prioritized ensuring high-value products such as HBM, server DRAM, and enterprise SSDs, leading to tighter supply of consumer-grade memory.
Due to rising cost pressures, some smartphone and PC brands are adjusting their memory orders.
This also means that the speed of DRAM price increases may slow down in the second half of the year.
Compared to mid-to-high-end products, demand for memory used in low-end terminals is expected to cool more noticeably.
Currently, semiconductor wafer resources are continuously being concentrated on high-bandwidth memory HBM, and capacity for consumer-grade DRAM is relatively compressed.
HBM maintains relatively stable prices through annual customer contracts, but supply and demand imbalances remain severe.
Universal server DRAM also shows an industry-wide upward trend, as cloud vendors continue to replenish DRAM inventories, with channel inventories maintained at about two to three weeks at low levels.
The consumer electronics market is thus under pressure.
The expansion of high-value memory products, limited additional capacity construction, and low inventory levels have led to a continued shortage of consumer-grade DRAM.
The NAND market also continues to rise.
SigmaIntell said that in the second quarter of this year, SSD prices increased by about 50% quarter-over-quarter.
Demand for enterprise NAND products remains strong, and price fluctuations have not weakened procurement willingness.
The expansion of AI clusters and AI agent servers is driving demand for high-performance, large-capacity storage devices.
Price increase pressures are also spreading to mobile and PC NAND.
UFS prices rose by up to 100%, due to enterprise SSD demand expansion squeezing supply, and the reduced supply of low-capacity eMMC and other low-end NAND, making consumer-grade NAND supply and demand also tighten.
Overall, the expansion of AI infrastructure is changing the price transmission path in the storage industry.
Previously concentrated mainly on shortages of HBM and server DRAM, the transmission is now spreading to mobile phones, PCs, and consumer storage markets through capacity allocation and wafer resource squeezing.
For terminal brands, rising memory and flash memory costs may become important variables affecting profit margins and product pricing in the second half of the year.
View Original
This page may contain third-party content, which is provided for information purposes only (not representations/warranties) and should not be considered as an endorsement of its views by Gate, nor as financial or professional advice. See Disclaimer for details.
  • Reward
  • Comment
  • Repost
  • Share
Comment
Add a comment
Add a comment
No comments