In the fourth quarter, the prices of SSDs in both the industry and channel markets generally doubled, and the overall market transactions shrank significantly compared with the previous quarter.

Since the fourth quarter, due to the significant price increase of upstream resources and the overall limited supply, suppliers, apart from giving priority to meeting the supply of core customers, have been strictly controlling the order - taking volume for mass customers in a price - oriented manner. Some price - sensitive consumer - grade customers can't accept high - priced memory products, and the overall market transaction volume has shrunk significantly compared with the third quarter. Overall, the activity of the memory spot market is limited. At the same time, Micron announced last week that it would withdraw from the consumer - grade business of the Crucial brand. Other memory brand suppliers are expected to take over this part of the market share. However, against the backdrop of the current imbalance between supply and demand, Crucial's exit undoubtedly further exacerbates the instability of the consumer - grade market.

From the perspective of resource supply, the cumulative increase in the price of 512Gb and above Flash Wafers in Q4 generally exceeded 100% compared with the previous quarter. Entering this month, due to the need of some traders at the end of the year to withdraw funds and take profits, market speculation has subsided, and spot - end resources have generally hovered at a high level. As the end of the quarter approaches, some memory manufacturers have released small - batch resources, but the prices are high. Downstream suppliers can still average out the overall cost by combining the previously hoarded low - priced inventory with the currently replenished high - priced resources. However, as the low - priced inventory is quickly consumed, the high - cost pressure will increase significantly in the future.

In terms of upstream resources, the price of Flash Wafer has been basically flat recently, and the price of some DDR has increased slightly. Among them, the prices of DDR4 8Gb/4Gb eTT and DDR5 16Gb eTT have increased to $5.00/$1.75/$13.00 respectively.

Since the fourth quarter, the prices of channel SSDs have increased significantly across the board. Up to now, the prices of channel SSDs have generally increased by 150%, and the increase of some capacity products has even exceeded twice. Currently, some channel suppliers, based on the successful completion of their annual performance this year, continue to raise quotations on the basis of controlling the order - taking volume and keep challenging new price highs, and extend the delivery time for newly concluded orders. In addition, due to the excessively high prices of current channel SSDs and UDIMMs, some channel customers can no longer bear the high - cost risk, which will accelerate market clearance in the future.

Since the second half of the year, the supply of consumer - grade DDR4 from major DRAM memory manufacturers has almost stagnated. Recently, some industry suppliers have turned to Nanya Technology for supply. However, most of Nanya Technology's DRAM products are of small capacity and the output is relatively limited. The currently available products are mainly 8Gb DDR4, while 16Gb DDR4 and high - specification resources have been out of stock for a long time due to long - term supply restrictions. Some suppliers have suspended order - taking and quotation. Regarding industry SSDs, although the prices of memory - factory resources are high, downstream manufacturers with rigid replenishment needs still have to accept the current high prices. At the same time, some urgent orders have a stronger ability to accept high - priced SSDs, which also provides support for industry suppliers to continue to push up the prices of related products.

Recently, some memory manufacturers have shipped a small amount of LPDDR4X resources at a high price on the basis of strict quantity control, and only supplied a small amount for individual capacities. From the perspective of comprehensive cost, the price of LPDDR resources has reached about $0.8/GB, and the overall supply is still tight. The price of LPDDR4X products continued to rise this week. In addition, some embedded products adopt the stacked - die solution, and the large - capacity eMMC finished products made face greater pricing pressure due to higher production costs.

The construction process of global AI data centers is accelerating and being implemented one after another. Large - scale cloud service providers will continue to increase their investment in AI infrastructure next year. At present, the demand for server memory has far exceeded the memory manufacturers' expectations and actual production capacity supply. Driven by both panic buying and bullish sentiment, the market continues to heat up. The supply satisfaction rate of server DRAM is at a low level. The price of DRAM increased significantly in the fourth quarter, and it is expected to increase by more than 40% in the first quarter. This month, the prices of server 32/64/96GB DDR5 RDIMM are $260/$500/$800 respectively, and the prices of 16/32/64GB DDR4 RDIMM are $230/$300/$500 respectively.