The week February 1-5 was quiet for both DRAM and NAND flash trading at the Greater China area spot markets as vendors and major memory module houses maintained flat quotes, resulting in only marginal changes in corresponding channel pricing, according to inSpectrum.
Spot pricing for both DDR3 and DDR2 saw limited changes of within 1% for the week. As of the noon session of February 5, branded 1Gb DDR3 and DDR2 chips were trading at US$2.85 and US$2.27, respectively.
The week saw no positive or negative price catalysts, as evident in flat quotes among vendors and big module houses, inSpectrum said, adding that, as in the previous week, some transactions for DDR2 were stimulated by the price difference with DDR3, but volumes were small.
The NAND flash spot market was also quiet in terms of transaction volumes, but market sentiment did turn positive as more buyers made advanced bookings before the Lunar New Year holidays, inSpectrum observed.
"Industry players are more optimistic amid the launch of the Apple iPad, despite that 2010 shipment volumes will remain relatively small." inSpectrum said. "As most buyers expect prices to trend upwards after the Lunar New Year holidays, they have placed more pre-holiday bookings" the company explained.
As of the noon session of February 5, spot pricing of 16Gb and 32Gb multi-level cell (MLC) NAND flash closed at US$4.34 and US$7.57, respectively, representing a 1% drop and 2% growth accordingly.