2H’Apr. contract price start to decline from the slow season effect

2H’Apr. contract price start to decline from the slow season effect

2H’Apr. NAND Flash contract price indicated a partially flat and decline pricing given the current market dynamics. With a wide variety of buyers’ and sellers’ views toward the market, resulted in a conservative atmosphere in end of April. Some NAND Flash chips sustained the 2H’Apr. contract price, benefited from the stable OEM orders from some system product makers. However, with inventory replenished among memory card and UFD makers for the upcoming Chinese Labor-Day holidays were done around mid-April. Part of NAND Flash chips in 2H’Apr. average contract price declined 2%-5% with the softened demand.

DRAMeXchange expects NAND Flash market to be factored by following variables : 1.) Retail memory card and UFD market is entering the slow season in May and June, 2.) The recovery progress of IC raw materials are getting back on track that most NAND Flash vendor did not lower the 2011 supply bit growth target, 3.) 2xnm node technology is getting mature and output portion will be significantly increased from mid-2Q11, 4.) The Tablet PC shipment of some newcomers will probably be behind original forecast by the aggressive competing strategy from other pioneers, and 5.) The recovery of global economy still lies in uncertainty in 2011. Meanwhile, NAND Flash contract price has already increased from the speculation on supply uncertainty in March. April NAND Flash contract price tends to be more stable with most of the supply uncertainty brought by the earthquake clarified. DRAMeXchange expects the contract price will start to gradually decline in May to reflect the slow-season effect.