The fire at SK Hynix’s Wuxi fab had a significant impact on the NAND flash market in the third quarter, and will continue to do so in the fourth quarter. Some memory suppliers reallocated NAND flash capacity to DRAM in the wake of the fire, and the reduced output helped stabilize the NAND flash price trend in September and eased oversupply in the fourth quarter. However, the demand outlook is conservative, TrendForce expects short-term NAND flash industry growth will be limited...
According to DRAMeXchange, a division of global research firm TrendForce, initial DRAM price trend projections for the second half of 2013 were gloomy, but the September fire at SK Hynix’s Wuxi fab temporarily resulted in severe supply shortage. Spot prices increased by 40% with DDR3 2Gb hitting US$2, while contract price reached a high of US$34. However, as SK Hynix and Samsung both increased production in the wake of the fire, the price uptrend that resulted from the incident has already been suppressed, and the contract price trend is expected to stay flat or decrease slightly in the fourth quarter...