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2022/12/27
Client SSDs constituted a major driver of demand bit growth in the NAND Flash market for the past two years as the effects of the COVID-19 pandemic were spurring procurement activities related to working and studying from home TrendForce currently projects that the attach rate of client SSDs among notebook computers will reach 92% in 2022 and around 96% in 2023 However, the demand surge related to the pandemic is subsiding, and the recent headwinds in the global economy have caused a demand freeze in the wider consumer electronics market Hence, among the major application segments of the NAND Flash market, client SSDs are going to experience the most significant demand slowdown This, in turn, will constrain demand bit growth as well TrendForce projects that for the period from 2022 to 2025, the YoY growth rate of NAND Flash demand bits will remain below 30%
The average NAND Flash content of client SSDs has already surpassed 500GB this year Quotes for 512GB SSDs have fallen sharply and come to a level that is roughly comparable to the quotes that were given for 256GB SSDs half-a-year ago In fact, quotes for 512GB SSDs are also near the level for HDDs with the same capacity On the other hand, upgrading to 1TB or higher for notebook SSDs could be challenging for PC OEMs mainly because the licensing fee for the Windows OS has a positive correlation with device specifications Therefore, an increase in SSD capacity will raise the cost of a whole notebook computer With PC OEMs being less keen on adopting SSDs that are 1TB or higher, growth in the average NAND Flash content of client SSDs will also be more limited in the future
Regarding lower-capacity storage solutions for notebook computers, Microsoft is encouraging PC OEMs to adopt UFS solutions for entry-level notebook computers that come with 128GB of storage There are two reasons behind this development First, the market for 128GB SSDs are gradually shrinking Second, compared with SATA, UFS has a price advantage and a comparable performance in terms of data transfer speed In the long run, UFS solutions could replace low-capacity client SSDs for notebook storage However, SSDs have experienced a steep price drop recently, so their price difference with UFS solutions has gotten smaller Furthermore, there are no PC CPU platforms that natively support the faster data transfer speed offered by UFS 31 For now, PC OEMs believe there is no need to make the switch since UFS solutions still lack a notable price advantage Opportunities for adopting UFS solutions will only become more apparent when there is a clear price advantage and native support is available from CPU platforms
Enterprise SSDs Will Succeed as Major Driver of Demand Bit Growth in Future
The momentum of NAND Flash demand varies for different applications For instance, demand bit growth has not been as rapid for notebook SSDs as it has been for smartphone storage solutions This in part has to do with notebook cameras being mainly used for video streaming rather than shooting photos and videos that have a high image quality TrendForce projects that NAND Flash demand bits related to client SSDs will increase by 43% YoY for 2022 and 116% YoY for 2023 Turning to the YoY growth rate of the average NAND Flash content of client SSDs, it is projected to reach 182% for 2022 and then shrink to 96% for 2023 Eventually, enterprise SSDs will take over from client SSDs as a major driver of demand bit growth in the global NAND Flash market
For more information on reports and market data from TrendForce’s Department of Semiconductor Research, please click here, or email Ms Latte Chung from the Sales Department at lattechung@trendforcecom
For additional insights from TrendForce analysts on the latest tech industry news, trends, and forecasts, please visit our blog at https://insidertrendforcecom/
2022/11/23
Market intelligence firm TrendForce reports that the whole NAND Flash market was severely weakened by plummeting demand in 3Q22 Because shipments of end products including consumer electronics and servers had been below expectations, the overall NAND ASP fell by 183% QoQ Furthermore, the general economic outlook remained pessimistic, so enterprises across many sectors started to scale back their capital expenditure plans and halted the momentum of their procurement activities Due to this development, the problem of excess inventory eventually spread to NAND Flash suppliers The pressure on suppliers to make sales was ratcheted up dramatically According to TrendForce’s investigation, NAND Flash bit shipments fell by 67% QoQ for 3Q22, and the overall NAND Flash ASP also kept sliding On account of the unfavorable market situation, the NAND Flash industry recorded a total revenue of around US$1371 billion for 3Q22 The QoQ revenue decline reached as much as 243%
The ranking of NAND Flash suppliers by revenue saw two notable changes for 3Q22 First, SK Group moved down to third place as it suffered the largest revenue drop among suppliers Its revenue slipped by 298% QoQ to US$254 billion mainly due to the significant deterioration of the demand for PCs and smartphones Its subsidiary Solidigm was also affected by the slowdown in server procurements Previously, servers had a fairly stable demand situation compared with other kinds of end products However, server demand eventually buckled in 3Q22 as result of enterprises cutting capital expenditure and undergoing a period of inventory correction Compared with 2Q22, SK Group (that encompasses SK hynix and Solidigm) posted a drop of 111% in bit shipments and an even steeper decline of more than 20% in ASP
The other notable change in the 3Q22 ranking was Kioxia The supplier returned to second place in terms of revenue and market share because it was able to make a gradual recovery from the material contamination incident that had happened earlier this year Even though Kioxia did suffer a significant decline in its ASP due to the slumping demand for consumer electronics, its bit shipments were bolstered by the seasonal stock-up activities of its clients in the smartphone industry and rose by 235% QoQ Taken altogether, Kioxia’s revenue dipped by just 01% QoQ to US$283 billion
Owing to Downturn in Both Quantity and Price, Micron Posted Largest Drop in NAND Flash Bit Shipments with QoQ Decline Reaching 21%
Other NAND Flash suppliers including Samsung, Western Digital and Micron all posted a considerable QoQ decline in revenue for 3Q22 because of a drop in both price and shipment quantity Again, weakening demand for end products was one of the major reasons behind these suppliers’ poor performances Regarding Samsung, the supplier saw a drop in its enterprise SSD shipments during 3Q22 as server demand slowed down This was a sharp negative turn compared with the situation in 2Q22, when orders related to data centers were propping up enterprise SSD procurements Samsung’s revenue fell by 281% QoQ to US$43 billion for 3Q22
Western Digital’s NAND Flash business were under enormous pressure in 3Q22 as it recorded a QoQ decline in bit shipments and a sharp drop in its ASP All in all, Western Digital’s revenue fell by 283% QoQ to US$172 billion Turning to Micron, an analysis of its memory revenue performance, which encompasses both DRAM and NAND Flash, has revealed that the only the application segment that did well in 3Q22 was automotive memory solutions Micron actually posted a new high for its revenue from automotive memory solutions in that quarter Conversely, its revenue figures related to other memory-related applications, including NAND Flash solutions for data centers, industrial IoT, etc, all exhibited a QoQ drop And because of the poor results for the rest of application segments, Micron’s NAND Flash revenue as a whole registered a steep QoQ decline of 262% to US$169 billion
NAND Revenue Will Show a QoQ Drop Again for 4Q22 as Inventory Pressure Continues to Mount and Production Cuts Bring No Immediate Relief
Moving into 4Q22, TrendForce believes that with the notable exception of Samsung, most suppliers will be more cautious in planning output following their respective earnings calls for the third quarter To restore balance to supply-demand dynamics as quickly as possible, suppliers will be taking measures such as cutting wafer input and decelerating the pace of technology migration However, the usual demand surge in connection with the year-end holiday sales has failed to materialize this year, and NAND Flash buyers’ passiveness is causing inventory to further accumulate on the supply side As for production cuts, their effect on the market will not be apparent for at least a quarter Hence, prices of NAND Flash products will still be under significant downward pressure in 4Q22, and TrendForce has widened the projected QoQ decline in contract prices to 20~25% in its latest forecast With high inventory and falling prices serving as constraining factors, the NAND Flash industry is also forecasted to post a QoQ decline of almost 20% in its total revenue for 4Q22
For more information on reports and market data from TrendForce’s Department of Semiconductor Research, please click here, or email Ms Latte Chung from the Sales Department at lattechung@trendforcecom
For additional insights from TrendForce analysts on the latest tech industry news, trends, and forecasts, please visit our blog at https://insidertrendforcecom/
2022/10/03
According to a TrendForce investigations, memory pricing began to decline from 4Q21 due to weakening demand for certain consumer electronics Coupled with the impact of rising inflation, the Russian-Ukrainian war, and pandemic policies, demand in peak season was weak, resulting in inventory pressure that has extended from the buyer side to manufacturers In response to the aforementioned situation, Micron announced last week that it would cut production of DRAM and NAND Flash, becoming the first major memory manufacturer to officially reduce its capacity utilization plan In terms of NAND Flash, the market situation is more severe than that of DRAM As the average contract price of mainstream capacity wafers has fallen to their cash cost and is approaching the periphery of selling at a loss for various manufacturers, Kioxia also announced that it will reduce NAND Flash capacity utilization by 30% from October on the heels of Micron’s announcement
In terms of DRAM, current contract pricing remains higher than the total production cost of various mainstream suppliers Therefore, compared with NAND Flash, it remains to be seen whether there will be a significant reduction in production In addition to mentioning the slight reduction in capacity utilization in this sector currently, Micron mainly emphasized its sharp downward revision of capital expenditures in 2023 and that the annual growth of DRAM production bits next year will only be around 5% TrendForce believes, according to Micron, to actualize such conservative bit growth means that there is still room for a significant downward revision in capacity utilization and the extent to which Micron's subsequent production reductions are implemented remains to be seen
In terms of NAND Flash, Micron originally planned to gradually increase its proportion of 232-layer products from 4Q22 However, with the implementation of the company’s decision to reduce production, Micron's mainstream processes are estimated to remain dominated by 176-layer products in 2023, while wafer starts in legacy processes will also fall Kioxia and WDC originally planned to migrate to 162-layer products starting in 4Q22 but WDC slowed CapEx in 2023 When funding is hard to come by and demand visibility poor, the proportion of 162-layer products will fall greatly and the company’s original plan to replace mainstream 112-layer products in 2023 will not be achieved
More manufactures limiting bit output cannot be ruled out as only large-scale production reduction can reverse supply/demand imbalance in 2023
After analyzing 2023 supply and demand in the memory market, due to a conservative demand outlook, DRAM and NAND Flash look to be greatly oversupplied in each quarter and inventory pressure will continue to accelerate in 1H23 In the DRAM sector, after Micron led the way to announce a DRAM production reduction plan that will fall far below historical levels of supply-side bit growth, the 2023 DRAM Sufficiency Ratio will contract from the 116% previously forecast by TrendForce to less than 10%, helping to alleviate rapidly deteriorating inventory pressure However, more suppliers must be relied on to join in the actual reduction of DRAM production in the future in order to reverse the supply and demand imbalance next year
It is imperative to reduce bit supply in the NAND Flash field due to the large number of competitors and the fact that manufacturers have yet to encroach on the physical limits of manufacturing Considering that supply-side bit growth from Micron and Kioxia has been downgraded, the 2023 NAND Flash Sufficiency Ratio will drop significantly from the original estimate of 101% to 56% Under the expectation that more NAND Flash suppliers will join the ranks reducing production due to loss considerations, inventory pressure is expected to ease in the 2Q23, while price declines are expected to diminish in 2H23
For more information on reports and market data from TrendForce’s Department of Semiconductor Research, please click here, or email Ms Latte Chung from the Sales Department at lattechung@trendforcecom
For additional insights from TrendForce analysts on the latest tech industry news, trends, and forecasts, please visit our blog at https://insidertrendforcecom/
2022/09/26
According to TrendForce research, NAND Flash is currently oversupplied Buyers started focusing on destocking and greatly reducing purchases in 2H22 while sellers began offering rock-bottom prices to shore up purchase orders, causing wafer pricing to drop by 30-35% in 3Q22 All types of NAND Flash end products remain weak and factory inventory increased rapidly, resulting in a 15-20% decline in NAND Flash pricing in 4Q22 Most manufacturers’ NAND Flash product sales will also officially cross over into loss territory before the end of this year, which means that certain suppliers under pressure from operating at a loss will likely reduce production as a way to reduce losses
In terms of client SSDs, since purchasing demand in 2H22 is far less than that in 1H22, PC brands currently feel pessimistic regarding demand next year and reducing inventory is a top priority, causing suppliers to increase client SSD price flexibility to surge shipments PCIe 40 SSD shipments continued to rise this year and more suppliers launched 176-layer products to increase the penetration rate of this interface In particular, 512GB quickly became the focus of supply Coupled with a large supply of QLC SSDs, the supply side generally latched onto the 512GB capacity for fixed-volume or two quarter consolidated price negotiation strategies, intensifying price competition at this capacity The decline in PC client SSD pricing is estimated to broaden to 15~20% in 4Q22
In terms of Enterprise SSDs, purchase volume has also declined due to the expectation that server shipments will fall in 4Q22 However, though demand for consumer products has dropped significantly, manufacturers are eager to expand sales of enterprise SSDs Notably, US manufacturers began providing 176-layer products to clinch market share and Solidigm released a SK hynix 128-layer enterprise SSD for customer verification At the same time, Kioxia is eagerly partnering with North American cloud service providers for PCIe 40 SSD Price competition among suppliers is bound to intensify as more products enter the market Thus, the price of enterprise SSD is forecast to drop by 15-20% in 4Q22
In terms of eMMC, sluggish demand for chromebooks and TVs is cultivating a negative attitude among buyers towards eMMC stocking As for demand visibility of networking products, visibility is optimistically expected to extend to the end of the year but, considering sluggish overall demand, only limited support for eMMC demand can be provided by networking products alone With weak demand for consumer products and sustained growth in supply and output, inventory pressure forced manufacturers to offer low prices in 3Q22 for fixed-volume sales in 2H22 to stimulate buyers' willingness to buy However, buyers’ order requirements generally trend towards small quantities across several batches This will lead to a decline of eMMC pricing until the end of the year and eMMC prices are estimated to fall by approximately 13-18% in 4Q22
In terms of UFS, the main application of UFS which is the smartphone market remains weak and traditional peak season sales has fallen short of past performance Brands retain high inventory levels in both whole devices and components and their willingness to buy UFS has decreased Therefore, manufacturers began looking for fixed-volume shipments starting in 3Q22, aggressively attracting transactions with branded companies though low prices and reaching supply agreements with certain Chinese brands in succession However, since the market is generally pessimistic regarding demand next year, the status of manufacturer transactions has been poor and inventory pressure has not eased significantly Therefore, manufacturers will continue to intensify price incentives to stimulate stocking momentum UFS pricing in 4Q22 is estimated to drop by approximately 13~18%, with further slips a possibility
In terms of NAND Flash wafers, even though some module makers have experienced slight pressure relief after several quarters of inventory adjustment, the overall market situation is still pessimistic, so attitudes towards stocking is extremely passive Demand for products such as SSDs, memory cards, and drives at the retail end is stagnant as consumer products continue its slump and fail to become a force supporting wafer pricing The supply side continues to increase wafer supply and a slowdown in the pace of process migration to higher layers has not been realized Since a downward trend in pricing is inevitable, manufacturers are forced to accelerate process migration to optimize cost structure In addition, manufacturers have been slashing prices since 3Q22, resulting in wafer contract pricing quickly approaching factories’ cash cost TrendForce observes, against the framework of a perfectly competitive market for NAND Flash, suppliers intend to accelerate wafer price drops, and NAND Flash wafer pricing in 4Q22 is estimated to fall 20-25% QoQ
For more information on reports and market data from TrendForce’s Department of Semiconductor Research, please click here, or email Ms Latte Chung from the Sales Department at lattechung@trendforcecom
For additional insights from TrendForce analysts on the latest tech industry news, trends, and forecasts, please visit our blog at https://insidertrendforcecom/
2022/09/01
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%
In the past two years, the pandemic has promoted digital transformation and notebook computers and servers have stimulated rapid growth in NAND Flash consumption In order to satisfy demand, manufacturers have been expanding aggressively, with their processes accelerating the output of 128-layer+ products However, the 2H22 NAND Flash market situation has deteriorated sharply with the acute correction in purchase order demand for smartphones and laptops indicative of a market oversupply Looking forward to 2023, the conservative attitudes of various consumer electronics brands may lead to difficulties in improving market conditions in the next year and stimulate suppliers to step up efforts to seize market share
TrendForce indicates, due to sustained price precipitation in 2H22, if some manufacturers do not make production cuts, there is an increased possibility another wave of consolidation in the market may be triggered In particular, the number of suppliers has not decreased and the price of NAND Flash will fluctuate greatly in the long term At the same time, some manufacturers may find it difficult to keep up with the speed of technology migration as the transition to higher technology-level production will increase CapEx Therefore, TrendForce believes that this wave of price collapse may be the beginning of market consolidation
Looking forward to the price of NAND Flash wafers in 4Q22, as manufacturers have already implemented a strategy of maintaining market share at all costs, contract and spot market wafer pricing are facing collapse Therefore, TrendForce believes that NAND Flash wafer pricing may drop by another 20% in 4Q22 and, since the industry tends to negotiate pricing in the fourth quarter and the subsequent first quarter, this decline is likely to continue to expand in the shadow of rising inventories and frosty demand
For more information on reports and market data from TrendForce’s Department of Semiconductor Research, please click here, or email Ms Latte Chung from the Sales Department at lattechung@trendforcecom
For additional insights from TrendForce analysts on the latest tech industry news, trends, and forecasts, please visit our blog at https://insidertrendforcecom/
