Contract pricing in the memory market is expected to be affected by recent flooding in Thailand with shortages for 3.5-inch hard disk drives (HDD) for desktop expected to be larger than 2.5-inch HDDs used in notebooks, according to inSpectrum.
Quotes for HDDs to PC vendors have jumped 20-40% due to the floods, the research firm added. With the increased costs for HDDs, PC vendors might slow down their plans for the bit growth in their products. This is expected to affect overall DRAM bit growth in the fourth quarter of the year.
Overall DRAM prices at the spot price market this week (October 31-November 4) were dragged by weak demand. As of the noon session of November 4, spot pricing of branded 2Gb DDR3 dropped 5% to US$0.83 and white-branded 2Gb DDR3 decreased by 3% to US$0.70, according to inSpectrum.
Overall transactions of NAND flash at the spot market were very limited this week with the price trend stabilizing again, said the research firm.