TrendForce’s latest research paints a vivid picture: Q2 saw the NAND Flash market still grappling with lackluster demand and being significantly outpaced by supply. The ASP of NAND Flash also took a hit, tumbling 10–15%. Nevertheless, there was a silver lining as bit shipments grew by 19.9% QoQ from a low baseline in 1Q23. To sum up, the Q2 landscape of the NAND Flash sector witnessed a 7.4% QoQ growth in revenue, reaching US$9.338 billion.
According to TrendForce's research, other suppliers are also expected to follow suit and increase their production cutbacks in the fourth quarter to accelerate inventory reduction. With this maneuver in play, Q4 NAND Flash average prices are projected to either hold firm or witness a mild surge, possibly in the ballpark of 0~5%.
The Pro series, armed with smoother production cycles and the Pro Max’s exclusive periscope lens, is poised to be a consumer magnet and potentially propel the Pro series to constitute over 60% of Apple's new device production. However, with overall gloomy market sentiment and Huawei’s comeback in full swing, Apple’s total iPhone sales for the year may take a hit, expected to hover between 220 to 225 million units for a 5% YoY decline.
Insufficient downstream demand has put a damper on both supply and demand in the EV battery market. TrendForce reveals that the ASP of EV cells in China fell below CNY 0.6/Wh in August. The average price drops of EV square ternary cells, LFP cells, and pouch ternary power cells reached 10%, with respective prices of CNY 0.65/Wh, CNY 0.59/Wh, and CNY 0.7/Wh—highlighting an uninspiring growth pattern in the EV battery market.
In this ambiance of restrained consumer enthusiasm, shipments of CMOS Image Sensors (CIS) are poised to take a correlated dip. TrendForce projects that we’re looking at a global shrinkage in smartphone CIS shipments from 4.46 billion units in 2022 to a more subdued 4.318 billion units in 2023. That translates to a YoY contraction of 3.2%.
