According to the latest TrendForce investigations, moving into the second half of 3Q22, the lack of a peak season has led to a delay in inventory destocking. Transactions in the NAND Flash market have been frosty. Buyers are watching passively and tend not to negotiate pricing. Pressure on factory inventory has reached a breaking point and manufacturers are bottoming out pricing in order to make a deal. This move will lead to a further decline in manufacturer pricing. TrendForce once again revises downward 3Q22 NAND Flash wafer contract prices and the decline of pricing is estimated to balloon to 30-35% from the original estimate of 15-20%.
According to TrendForce research, NAND Flash contract pricing increased by approximately 3-8% in 2Q22 due to Kioxia’s raw material contamination incident. However, consumer demand remained sluggish, resulting in weaker bits demand in laptops, chromebooks, TVs, and smartphones and leading to a rise in client inventory levels. Enterprise SSD purchasing has maintained strong momentum, offsetting sluggish consumer demand. In 2Q22, supplier bit shipments decreased by 1.3% QoQ, while ASP increased by 2.3%. Overall NAND Flash industry revenue reached US$18.12 billion, growing 1.1% QoQ.
Spurred by pandemic-induced lifestyle changes in the past two years, demand for distance education grew and sales of electronic products boomed, driving the growth of DRAM module shipments. According to TrendForce statistics, overall 2021 sales in the global DRAM module market reached US$18.1 billion, with an annual growth rate of approximately 7%. Due to different business strategies employed by each module house, revenue distribution among module houses varied.
According to TrendForce research, material supply improvement and spiking demand for enterprise SSDs from North American hyperscale data center and enterprise clients in 2Q22 coupled with the Kioxia contamination incident in 1Q22 prompted customers to ramp up procurement to avoid future supply shortages. Manufacturers also give priority to meeting the needs of server customers due to the high pricing of enterprise SSD. In the second quarter, overall revenue of the enterprise SSD market increased by 31.3% to US$7.32 billion.
As rising inflationary pressure continues to weaken the global economy, demand for various consumer applications has been downgraded since the second quarter and is expected not improve until the end of the year. Although server demand is stable, a period of inventory adjustment has been ushered in, which exacerbates oversupply in the NAND Flash market. According to TrendForce investigations, since sellers are no longer locked into fixed pricing, NAND Flash price declines in the third quarter expanded from the original forecast of 8~13% to 13~18% QoQ. If manufacturers' production capacity planning is not curtailed, this decline is likely to continue into the fourth quarter.
