Large -capacity storage price increases are particularly obvious. Everyone speculates that the relationship between Huawei Mate 60 series is strong. It coincides with the nodes of the industry's conventional gold, nine silver and ten, and recently the improvement or demand for consumer electronics shipment such as PC and smartphones.
The global PC shipments this year have grown in the second and third quarters of the second and third quarters. The industry believes that the PC industry has signs signs of recovery. In September, domestic mobile phones exports increased sharply, and the export amount rose 123.37%month -on -month. Tianfeng International Securities Analyst Guo Mingzheng recently issued a post pointed out that the bottom of the Chinese mobile phone market will pass, and it is expected to regain growth. 4Q23 mobile phone shipments will return to growth year -on -month and year -on -year.
The industry's stocking of mobile phone storage is coming. Module manufacturer groups have seen the demand for modules and smartphone customers from the mainland in September. Some customers have even accepted 30%to 35%. Purchase of storage module factories go to South Korea to talk about the price of NAND FLASH.
The large Korean manufacturer even issued a pre-produced person, saying that the supply and demand gap after production reached 20%-30%. If it did not sign a contract before July, the supply can only accept the price increase.
Storage prices have risen? Is the bitter day of storage going?
01
The contract price increases
The market is "loud"
In early August, some friends saw that the storage market had risen slightly, and rose until September "dare not receive orders."
Until the spot market in August to September, the storage chip was very lively. SSD and EMMC, such as module products with NAND FLASH as the storage medium, the price started to rebound first. "EMMC and large capacity are raising prices, and Samsung rose 30 % -40 % in the contract market."
The global storage chip market is still mainly DRAM and NAND Flash. In 2022, the DRAM market size accounted for 56.8%; the NAND Flash market accounted for 43.2%. Among them, DRAM is mainly used as a computer memory, which can be divided into DDR series, LPDDR series and GDDR series, HBM series. NAND Flash is widely used as large -capacity data storage media, which can be divided into SSD, EMMC, SD card, etc. NOR FLASH is the third largest storage chip in the market. It is widely used in electronic devices that require the storage system program code.
"Now everyone has followed the business of SSD, especially Samsung's SSD." In early September, channel vendors broke the news in a forum, and domestic second- and third -tier SSD brand manufacturers recently started to implement price increases.
Due to the price increase of storage, large storage mobile phones may also temporarily say goodbye to the "cabbage price", and the blogger "digital gossip station", known for its accurate news, said that the starting price of some new flagship models will rise by 300-500 Yuan.
The stock of new smartphones such as Huawei, and the large -capacity of mobile phone storage, may drive EMMC volume and price rise. EMMC, Embeded Multimedia Card, is a flash memory standard formulated by the MMC Association for mobile phone tablets, consisting of NAND FLASH and NAND Flash controller. Common mobile phone flash memory standards on the market have EMMC, UFS, and NVME. Among them, Android phones mainly use EMMC and UFS standards, while NVME is the flash memory standard used by Apple iPhone.
According to media reports, manufacturers in the storage industry's downstream contract market have stated that the original factory has notified the Q4 contract price to increase, so that customers have time to notify the price increase to the downstream in September.
The storage market is very large and subdivided. The current rising response is differentiated, and market participants feel different.
Mu Mu, who is a storage and MTK MediaTek set, said that although the price is now raised compared to the past, from the perspective of DDR (memory bar), EMMC, EMCP (EMMC+LPDDR), the demand is not complete, at least not expected to be in the middle good. "We mainly do terminals. There were more inquiries in the past two weeks, and the shipments did not see. It can be seen that the current real demand and shipments have not been up." "Compared with the beginning of the year, the demand has increased slightly, but It's just normal shipping, and the transaction is bland. "
By the end of September, at the end of the third quarter, as the NAND market continued to heat up, the DRAM market also began to pick up, showing the situation of channel SSD and DDR prices rising. However, SSD "Only Samsung's first -line brand business is more hot." Some people said that "DDR (mainstream) has not moved much, and LPDDR (mainly used for portable equipment) cannot be obtained."
In DDR, the spot prices of markets such as DDR4 and DDR5 have increased significantly, DDR4 memory bar demand has also begun to increase, market inventory is very limited, price increases have a great impact on small and medium -sized customers, and they are in the anxiety period of buyers and sellers.
For the mainstream DDR4, Luke, a friend who mainly stores Meiguang DRAM, said that in October, DDR4 particles have officially increased, and the original factory has risen by 10-15%. Customers have reserved. Followed up, like Micron and domestic Changxin have risen. "
In terms of the original factory, both Nor Flash and NAND FLASH have risen, and order quotes have increased significantly, but the demand side has not improved significantly.
The overall demand of the mechanical hard disk HDD is smooth, and most of the inquiries are mainly small or the production number of the production. In addition, the hard disk manufacturer has continued to increase the price from the second quarter, so it is difficult to make a order. Earlier, the price war of SSD attracted many consumers, but HDD's share in the enterprise market is still very large, which is one of the confidence of manufacturers' price increases.
Friends who have been in contact with the storage chip for many years have observed that the price increase in the storage industry is not the same as in previous years. "September 2016 is out of stock. Remember to increase the price of DRAM first, and then NOR, EMMC, NAND, Module (memory module, generally, generally Composed of DRAM) rose again. "Now DRAM's reaction lags slightly behind NAND Flash, which is mainly stored in large -capacity storage. Until October, the performance of DDR4, which was not optimistic, was more powerful.
In fact, this round of storage chips price increases, the earliest benefits from the original factory's active production reduction and price increases. In the second quarter of this year's financial report, many head storage manufacturers adopted a series of production reduction measures said that the industry has begun to build construction. The bottom is that it is not possible to increase the price. Almost all storage manufacturers have faced losses before, which means that almost every chip produced is losing money.
02
Storage price increases, the bitter days have passed?
"Most customers accept price increases, and the price after price increase is still at the low level of history, and customers can accept it." Luke saw that the storage price at the bottom of this time has risen. The original factory reduction is the key. The original factory is reduced, and the supply and demand are balanced, and the price is gradually picking up.
The chip supply is too required. The original factory has endured it for a long time, and the continuous reduction of production and reducing inventory has achieved initial results. According to the data compiled by the National Gold Securities Institute, the number of global storage original inventory of 22Q3 was 5.1 months, which was higher than the 3.0 months in the same period last year, and rose for five consecutive quarters. ) 3.7 months.
At the beginning of this year, Samsung's NAND inventory water level exceeded 20 weeks, soaring up to 28 weeks, but it had fallen to 18 weeks (126 days) in August, and the NAND inventory was normal at the end of the year (6-8 weeks).
According to the report of Jibang Consulting, Samsung has reduced the capacity of NAND flash memory by as much as 50%since September 2023. It is mainly reduced to NAND below 128 floors. After cutting production capacity, Samsung will be with other NAND manufacturers to manufacture flash memory tensions. In order to solve the current market NAND's excessive supply and low price.
SK Harbin 23Q1 PC and mobile customers have declined. Q2 saw customers' replenishment in inventory. In the first quarter of this year, the DRAM business of profit -making loss was only two quarters. After two quarters, Q3 achieved a profit. Signs of improvement.
Samsung announced that DRAM and NAND inventory will top in May at the 23Q2 financial report telephone, and H2 is expected to continue its destocking.
Micron's inventory of the output is vigorously reduced. As of FY23Q4, Micron's inventory basically flattened the previous quarter, but the DOI was significantly reduced. It is expected to be normal at 23Q4.
The original factory will not let the price increase, like DRAM with a monopoly, "as long as there is a 5 % gap, you can achieve a 10 % price increase."
It can also be seen in combination with the storage industry cycle, the days of the storage price "falling endlessly."
The growth rate of sales in the storage industry was roughly at the top of Q3 in 2021, and the growth rate in 2022 was negative. Looking back at the World Semiconductor Trade Statistics (WSTS) disclosed by the global semiconductor semiconductor sales year-on-year growth rates, the growth rate of revenue in the storage industry is usually 1-2 years from the top to the bottom.
Looking further, the gross profit margin trend of manufacturers is generally synchronized with the storage cycle. From the first quarter of this year to the second quarter, the gross profit margin of Micron, Winbond, Wanghong and other storage manufacturers had reached the bottom position. The Micron ’s gross profit margin broke the historical low in recent years and reached negative numbers for the first time.
Secondly, global storage looks at South Korea. The export amount of South Korea's storage chips is directly proportional to the storage price fluctuations, and the price fluctuations have also changed cyclical. In the past ten years, the export price trend of the Korean storage chip has been fluctuated in the total volume of export chips. The fluctuations of the total export volume are basically proportional to the price fluctuations. The export volume in South Korea has increased by 14%month -on -month.
This time NAND recovered from DRAM, and it was directly related to NAND manufacturers such as Samsung.
According to TrendForce, the increase in the NAND supply level this year will converge to 21%, and the NAND demand level increases by 27%. 9%in 2022 dropped to 4%in 2023. And due to the delay of DRAM manufacturer's expansion plan, it is expected that the DRAM supply level increases will increase by less than 10%this year, and it will be affected by factors such as computer overdraft consumption during the epidemic. Only 1%this year.
Beginning in mid -September, as the original factory has successively reduced the price of NAND production, the storage spot market NAND market has risen across the board, and it is transmitted to the spot SSD, EMMC/UFS card and U disk, from top to bottom. , Form a wave of price increases. The impact of price increase has also begun to spread to the spot DDR4 market.
Unlike ordinary IC chips, in the storage market, there is a circulation of memory particles and storage module products. Memory particles are equivalent to the "parts" of the storage chip/storage module. The product form, the "strip" and "memory bar" of the storage people are relatively granular.
NAND Flash products are mainly shipped to end manufacturers in the form of modules. The main products of the NAND Flash module. NAND Flash particles account for more than 70%of their modules. The interior of the high -end NAND Flash module will be matched with DRAM particles.
Part of the DRAM product is shipped in the form of a module, which is mainly used in PC and server memory. The other part is shipped to downstream customers in the form of particles. Typical LPDDR particles such as smartphones and GDDR/HBM particles used in graphics card modules are usually sent to TSMC, Manufacturers such as Sun and Moonlight are shipped to terminal manufacturers in the form of EPOP, 2.5D, SIP and other forms.
During this time, due to the storage of the original factory reduction price increase, some module factories with a keen sense of smell have secretly increased the inventory water level, and bought some low -cost chips to stock up the price increase. This wave of operations in the original factory is to gradually balance supply and demand, and it is no wonder that the rise in prices such as SSD can bring obvious chain reactions. It is reported that downstream SSD manufacturers and PC OEMs are also very active in stock. Friends with end customer resources in the storage market have begun to prepare for security inventory.
03
Conclusion
In 2016, the abnormal storage chip was abnormal, resulting in the rapid top of the market. In 2021, the Q3 was caused by the shortage of cores, but the overall demand is far from pushing the market to the top. Some friends observed that before the summer of 2016, the 4GB commercial DDR3 was minimum of 1.5 US dollars, and this year fell below $ 1. The 2GB DDR3 was the lowest 0.9 US dollars in that year. It had previously risen to $ 2.8. This year, it fell below $ 0.8. The lowest level is difficult to return to the previous price, "insufficient consumption."
Under the pressure of reducing production price increases, terminal customers will currently increase stocking in order to stabilize the supply. Some of the terminals with inventory wait -and -see supply attitudes and actual demands are exposed to price increases. Essence It is reported that the top -down price increase is expected to continue until next year.
The demand is rising slowly, and the storage has been surviving at least the hardest days, but it takes a while to respond.
Regarding when the storage industry really recovers, many people think that it is still necessary to combine the economic situation and customer needs next year. The HBM high -performance storage like AI with fire has a great demand for DRAM production capacity.
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