iPhone shipments in 2014 increased to 188.1 million units, up 22% on year, as strong demand for the new large-screen iPhone 6 reversed a year of declining sales, according to DRAMeXchange, a division of the Taiwan-based market intelligence firm TrendForce. “The strong performance of the iPhone 6 reaffirms Apple’s leadership position among high-end smartphone vendors,” said Sean Yang, an assistant vice president at DRAMeXchange.
The majority of DRAM contract prices were settled in the first half of October, according to DRAMeXchange, the memory and storage research division of TrendForce, a Taiwan-based market intelligence firm. The average 4GB contract prices reached US$ 32.75, an increase of 2.34%, while the lowest contract prices came to approximately US$ 32.5, up 4.84%.
Samsung Electronics plans to build a new semiconductor plant in South Korea at a cost of Won15.6tn ($14.7bn) to meet burgeoning demand for chips used in mobile devices. Construction of the chip-making plant, which will be the largest of its kind globally, will begin in the first half of 2015 and be completed in the second half of 2017, Samsung said.
While the launch of the iPhone 6 and iPhone 6 Plus has created a global consumer frenzy, eager Apple fans are still anticipating the release of the upgraded 2GB storage iPad Air 2, and Macbook Pro, which will be equipped with LPDDR3 DRAM for the first time.
Construction of Samsung and SK Hynix's new fabrication plants will be finished in 2015, and next year's plans for manufacturing capacity are currently being changed, according to DRAMeXchange, a division of Taiwan-based market intelligence firm TrendForce. The significant increase in capacity at Samsung's Line17 fab initially scheduled for the second quarter of 2015 was delayed. Production will begin at 10K wafer starts per month in 2Q15 and increase gradually, reaching 40K wafer starts per month by the end of the year.
