Global smartphone shipment is benefitting from the arrival of the industry's traditional peak season, according to DRAMeXchange, a research division of TrendForce. China's rising TD-LTE market is also creating growth momentum for smartphone shipments and upgraded smartphone specs.
The DRAM contract price for March continued to show a slight drop due to the effects of the traditional off-peak quarter, according to DRAMeXchange, a research division of TrendForce. The average agreed price arrived at approximately $US 31.5, which is a 1.56% decrease compared to the second half of February.
Given the sliding shipments of white-box tablets in the traditional off-peak quarter and the manufacturers’ already replenished supply, the demand for memory modules and chips became sluggish in the spot market. As a result, DDR3 4Gb 512Mx8 eTT prices slid by 13% following the Chinese Lunar New Year period.
NAND Flash suppliers are forced to employ aggressive pricing strategies as the main system OEM clients continue to reduce their orders during the off-peak quarter, according to DRAMeXchange, a research division of TrendForce. In February alone, the NAND Flash contract prices dropped by nearly 14% compared to the previous month.
According to DRAMeXchange, a division of global research firm TrendForce, the mobile memory industry’s worldwide revenue reached US$3.039 billion in the fourth quarter of 2013, bringing the yearly total to US$11.826 billion, representing 34.3% of DRAM industry value. The fire at SK Hynix’s Wuxi fabrication plant did not have a significant affect on mobile DRAM output, market competition brought average selling price down by 10% in the fourth quarter. Thus, despite a 3% QoQ increase in mobile shipments, total mobile memory revenue experienced a 7.8% QoQ decline.
