DRAMeXchange: WW DRAM revenue increase 6.9% in 1Q10 continuously

Apr. 30th,2010------According to DRAMeXchange, 1Q10 DDR3 average contract price and spot price has rise 16% and 14% respectively after the huge jump-up 40% and 30% in 4Q09. 1Q10 DDR2 average contract price and spot price also rise 5% and flat given the strong 61% and 68% pricing up in 4Q09.

1Q10 DDR3 market indicates the tight supply since PC-OEMs sharply rise DDR3 portion to 60% from 40% in 4Q09. PC-OEMS also pulled up the DDR2 inventory level given higher DDR2 exposure in spot market and aggressive DDR3 migration from DRAM vendors. That resulted in the fact that DDR2 1Gb chip spot price has reached US$3.

Despite of the slow season in 1Q10, however we see the price still remain its strong momentum while DRAM demand is still at the same level as the volume in 4Q09 with the concern of shortage in 2H’10.

According to DRAMeXchange, 1Q10 DRAM revenue ranking has demonstrated the ups and downs in the range of -15% to 37%. Samsung, Micron, Powerchip and ProMOS show the above-average sales growth in 1Q10.


According to DRAMeXchange, 1Q10 revenue has grown 6.9% QoQ to USD 9,277M thanks to the higher demand in slow season. With the continuous 46nm technology migration, Samsung, the market leader, recorded USD 3,000M quarterly revenue with 9.1% revenue QoQ and quarterly supply bit growth also increase 15%. Its leading market share has slightly increase 0.6% to 32.3% due to the above-average revenue growth. 1Q10 Hynix DRAM sales rose 6.8% to USD 1,998M given the 3% average price growth and 6% quarterly bit growth. Currently Hynix ranks as 2nd place.

Elpida recorded 1Q10 revenue in USD 1,618M with -3.7% QoQ given the high base in 4Q09. Elpida has strengthened its 3rd market leading position. For the different accounting period (1Q for Micron is Dec., Jan. and Feb.) it applied, contract price rose 7% compared with last periods (Sep., Oct. and Nov.). Benefited from the price and 17% QoQ shipment enhancement in this quarter, Micron recorded USD 1,311M quarterly revenue with 24%QoQ revenue growth. Micron grabbed 4th place in the ranking.

As for Taiwanese vendors, Benefited from the upward DDR3/DDR2 spot price and 3%QoQ supply bit growth, PSC shows the 8.3% revenue growth to USD 442M in 1Q10. Nanya recorded USD 425M as 1Q10 revenue with -14.4%QoQ due to -5% price decline as well as -8% in terms of shipment base. PSC has surpassed Nanya and ranked in No.5 place. Winbond announced its 1Q10 DRAM revenue in USD174M with 4.8%QoQ while recorded 1.9% market share. Benefited from the 60% bit growth in 1Q10, ProMOS recorded 37.4% QoQ revenue growth while market share has slightly increased 0.3% to 1.3%(Figure-1).




The Korean vendor’s share has slightly increased 0.8% to 54.6% in 1Q10 since Korean vendors has outperformed the industry average. Japanese vendors’ share has declined 1.9% to 17.7%. American vendors share increased 2% to 14.3% given the better-than-average sales growth. Taiwanese vendors shares is down  0.9% to 13.4% because of the revenue-declining Nanya.

Figure-1
(Company revenue includes outsourced portion and excludes the sub-manufacturing revenue)

   Unit: Million USD
Source: DRAMeXchange, Apr 2010.

Note 1:
Figure-1: For Samsung 1Q10 DRAM revenue , we approximately derived the resulted from memory sectors (5.59 trillion KRW) based on the assumption that DRAM revenue accounts for 61% in memory sectors and 1Q10 average exchange rate is USD1 against KRW 1,143.4. We apply this estimation to other vendors by indicating 81% for Hynix total revenue, 66.9% for Micron. 77% for PSC, 88% for ProMOS, 96% for Nanya and 79% for Winbond under the following exchange rate: USD1 against NTD31.9, USD1 against JPYD90.5.


Figure-2 Market share of own brand DRAM revenue, by country

Note: the calculation of market share does not including "the others" item
Source: DRAMeXchange, Apr. 2010