The earthquake that hit northeastern Japan has sparked widespread concerns about DRAM and NAND flash supply, bringing a record rebound in the channels this week (March 14-18), according to inSpectrum.
The price rebound in the NAND flash spot market was much stronger than DRAM's as Toshiba and SanDisk, which account for about 40% of the global supply, have their production hubs in Japan. When most vendors, as well as traders/brokers, stopped offering quotes after the quake, panic spread across the board, resulting in an intraday-rebound of more than 10% on March 11, inSpectrum observed.
Although the upward trend weakened later after some vendors resumed their quotations, inSpectrum believes NAND flash spot price will continue to be strong because inventory in the channels remains low. Vendors are expected to reserve their production priority for OEM customers, implying that less stock will be released to the channels.
As of noon of March 18, spot price of a 32Gb multi-level cell (MLC) flash part dropped by 4% to US$5.48 and the same-density triple-level cell (TLC) flash remained flat at US$4.53.
Spot price of DRAM also posted gains on last Friday after the quake. Though some vendors also stopped offering quotes, traders/brokers did not have strong feedbacks as most still housed sufficient inventory, inSpectrum explained. Leading memory module houses cut their prices again this week when seeing fewer inquires.
As of noon of March 18, spot price of a 1Gb branded and white-brand DDR3 went up 4% to US$1.18 and US$0.94, respectively.