The latest investigations from TrendForce finds that the top three IC design companies in 2019, Broadcom, Qualcomm, and NVIDIA, all exhibited decreased YoY revenues, significantly impacting global IC design revenue. Whether the industry can return to a state of growth will depend on whether the U.S. Department of Commerce expands its export restrictions and whether the COVID-19 pandemic can be sufficiently contained.
According to the DRAMeXchange research division of TrendForce, despite the apparent slowdown of the COVID-19 outbreak in China, the virus is now rapidly multiplying across the Middle East, Europe, and the United States. Earlier, the World Health Organization declared the COVID-19 outbreak a pandemic, which poses dire, system-wide risks for the global economy. Similarly, the memory market may take a turn for the worse and go into a slump earlier than expected.
Citing the U.S. government’s JEDI contract as well as the increased need for telework due to the COVID-19 outbreak, the DRAMeXchange research division of TrendForce has now raised its previous forecast of 2Q20 server DRAM price trend from a 15% increase QoQ up to a 20% increase QoQ. The same uptrend is reflected in 2Q20 enterprise SSD prices as well, with the previous forecast of a 5-10% increase QoQ now corrected up to a 10-15% increase QoQ. In addition, memory suppliers are now facing low inventory levels, subsequently prompting them to maintain the 2Q20 price upsurge.
According to the DRAMeXchange research division of TrendForce, 4Q19 NAND flash bit shipment increased by nearly 10% QoQ thanks to demand growth from data center clients. On the supply side, contract prices made a successful rebound due to shortages caused by the power outage at Kioxia’s Yokkaichi production base in June. In sum, 4Q19 NAND flash revenue reached $12.5 billion, an 8.5% increase QoQ.
According to the DRAMeXchange research division of TrendForce, the DRAM inventory finally returned to a relatively normal level for most OEMs in 4Q19 after nearly three consecutive quarters of adjustments. As the growth in the industry’s overall DRAM supply will be fairly limited in 2020, buyers have been raising procurement ahead of time. Therefore, despite the relatively strong base period in 3Q19, DRAM suppliers increased their sales bits in 4Q19. This increase was able to largely offset the declines in their quotes. All in all, 4Q19 global DRAM revenue registered a minor decrease of 1.5% QoQ, showing a relatively flat trend compared to the previous quarter.