Memory Module Prices Rise, While Low-Capacity eMMC Slips

Following the National Day holiday, the current spot memory market has yet to regain momentum, with trading sentiment remaining sluggish. Finished product prices showed mixed performance: driven by rising resource costs, most channel and industry memory modules saw slight price increases, while embedded eMMC/UFS products with capacities of 64GB and below experienced price declines this week due to persistently weak demand and continuously falling trade prices for related finished goods.

From the upstream resource perspective, high-grade DDR particles remain in tight supply, with some original manufacturers only releasing limited resources to core customers and raising prices slightly on a monthly basis. After nearly four consecutive months of price hikes by original manufacturers, DDR5 secondary-grade particle prices have reached new highs. Given that PC OEMs can no longer accept higher memory module prices, the elevated particle costs can no longer be passed on to finished products, prompting some memory manufacturers to adopt a cautious stocking strategy. However, as certain manufacturers have recently expanded applications of DDR5 secondary-grade particle-based finished products into fields such as servers, where customers have higher price acceptance, they continue to purchase costly DDR5 secondary-grade particles, thereby driving further price increases for original manufacturers' DDR5 16Gb eTT. Specifically, this week, DDR4 8Gb 3200, DDR5 24Gb Major, DDR5 16Gb Major, and DDR5 16Gb eTT prices rose slightly to $22.40, $58.00, $46.00, and $27.00, respectively.

As for Flash Wafer, since mid-to-late March this year, wafer trade prices have been significantly inverted against original manufacturers' official prices, with the price gap continuing to widen. The mainstream 512Gb NAND trade price has fallen to around $0.30/Gb. Although downstream memory manufacturers' inventories are gradually building up and their enthusiasm for resource stocking continues to decline, original manufacturers remain firm in maintaining stable prices and will promote shipments through bundling, complimentary offers, and other preferential conditions in the future. While panic selling is unlikely in the trade market before original manufacturers shift their wafer pricing stance, market sentiment remains depressed, and some traders continue to offload inventory to clear stock, making it difficult for wafer trade prices to stabilize in the short term.

Due to the continuous rise in channel DDR5 resource prices, memory manufacturers face surging procurement cost pressures, driving further price increases for related memory module products. Channel DDR4  modules, benefiting from higher price acceptance for some overseas orders, saw comprehensive price increases this week for both DDR4 and DDR5 modules.

After nearly a quarter of rising trends, DDR5 secondary-grade particle prices have climbed to approximately $1.70/Gb. Although mainland Chinese memory manufacturers are gradually raising finished memory module prices alongside rising particle costs, there remains a certain price gap between mainland Chinese and overseas memory modules of the same capacity and specifications. As DDR particle prices continue to rise, although mainland Chinese customers can no longer bear current high prices, industry manufacturers are attempting to continue raising quoted prices for corresponding products, given that overseas customers have higher price tolerance. This week, industry 8GB/16GB DDR5  module prices saw slight increases.

After the National Day holiday, market inquiries remained scarce. The trade market still has a large volume of various memory brand eMMC/UFS products with capacities of 64GB and below awaiting market absorption. However, end customers' inventories are high, and most no longer have restocking needs. Some customers, acting as buyers, are even dumping products into the market, causing an increasing volume of embedded eMMC/UFS to flow into the trade market. With trade prices continuously declining, the gap between memory manufacturers' eMMC/UFS prices and trade prices has further widened. This week, embedded eMMC products with capacities of 64GB and below, as well as 64GB UFS prices, experienced slight declines.