The LED chip subsidiary of China’s major LED supplier San’an Optoelectronics has just announced an 8% price hike for some its products that will take effect on January 10, 2017. Following four major waves of price increases implemented by participants in the global LED industry during 2016, San’an Opto is now leading another major price adjustment at the start of 2017. LEDinside, a division of TrendForce, believes that the main factor behind these price hikes is the rising costs of raw materials in the upstream of the supply chain, while warming demand and extremely low quotes also made the price increases more noticeable. LEDinside furthermore expects the material and manufacturing costs will play a central role in the pricing among industry players.
The latest analysis by DRAMeXchange, a division of TrendForce, finds that average selling prices of various categories of DRAM products will increase significantly in the first quarter of 2017 as they continue to experience tight supply. The general price upswing that began in the second half of 2016 therefore will persist into the first quarter of this year despite the period being the traditional off-peak season. The contract prices of DDR3 4GB PC DRAM modules have reached a high of above US$25, and prices of DRAM products will see an estimated sequential quarterly increase of more than 30% on average, which would be a new record for the off-peak season.
Demand for large-size LCD panels during the first half of 2017 will be above the level expected for the usual off season, according to WitsView, a division of TrendForce. This latest forecast is attributed to the closure of Samsung Display’s L7-1 fab and Sharp’s decision to halt supplying TV panels to Samsung Electronics. The market situation will become more uncertain in the second half of 2017 as important variables will influence panel supply and demand. WitsView forecasts that the glut ratio of large-size panel market for 2017 will be 3.2%, which is the almost the same as this year’s estimate of 3.3%. Note that “glut ratio” is a special index used by WitsView to measure market oversupply.
