Spot pricing of low-density NAND flash chips continued rising this week (June 28-July 2), thanks to warming-up demand from white-box e-book makers in China, according to the latest data.
Spot pricing of 16Gb multi-level cell (MLC) NAND flash grew another 2% averaging US$4.42 as of the noon session of July 2. Pricing for 32Gb was unchanged at US$6.97.
Checks show that some memory card makers have grown their procurement for 16Gb MLC NAND flash chips, driven by a surge in e-book reader demand from China. Most of the devices as made in China utilize 2GB eMMC memory plus an external memory card slot.
Concerns about a potential supply strain amid an optimistic outlook for handset sales in late third quarter have also encouraged more traders to source high-density NAND flash chips, resulting in a stable price trend.
For the DRAM spot market, the downhill price trend for DDR3 has continued reflecting slow demand. Many local traders have commented that they do not have a strong incentive to build more DDR3 inventory at the moment because they expect prices to drop further.
As of the noon session of July 2, spot pricing for 1Gb DDR2 and DDR3 closed at US$2.22 and US$2.34.