Time: 2022.10.06
According to the research of TrendForce Jibang Consulting, NAND Flash is currently in oversupply. Since the second half of the year, the buyer has focused on reducing the inventory and significantly reduced the purchase volume. The seller has issued a break price to consolidate the order, making the price of wafer in the third quarter drop by 30~35%. However, various NAND Flash terminal products are still weak, so the original factory inventory has risen rapidly, causing the price decline of NAND Flash in the fourth quarter to expand to 15~20%. However, most of the original NAND Flash products will also lose money before the end of this year, which means that under the pressure of operating losses, some suppliers may reduce their losses by reducing production.
In terms of client SSDs, since the purchase demand in the second half of 2022 is far less than that in the first half of 2022, and the PC brand is not optimistic about the demand for next year, it is urgent to reduce the inventory, thus enabling suppliers to increase the price elasticity of client SSDs to sprint for shipment. This year, however, the shipments of PCIe 4.0 SSDs continued to rise. More suppliers introduced 176 layers of products to improve the penetration of this interface. In particular, 512GB has long become the focus of supply. In addition to the large supply of QLC SSDs, the supply side generally locked 512GB capacity and adopted the strategy of binding or two consecutive quarters of combined bargaining to intensify the price competition for this capacity. It is estimated that the price of PC client SSDs in the fourth quarter will expand to 15-20%.
In terms of enterprise SSDs, under the expectation that the shipment of the whole server will decline in the fourth quarter, the purchase volume will also decline. But when the demand for consumer products is greatly reduced, the original factory is eager to expand the sales of enterprise SSDs. In particular, American manufacturers began to provide 176 layer products to compete in the market. Solidigm also launched SK hynix 128 layer enterprise SSDs for customer verification. At the same time, Kioxia actively cooperated with cloud service providers in North America on PCIe 4.0 SSDs, The price competition among suppliers is bound to intensify with more products coming into the market, so it is predicted that the enterprise SSD price will fall by 15-20% in the fourth quarter.
In terms of eMMC, the demand for chrome books and TVs is low, which makes the buyer have a negative attitude towards eMMC stock; As for the demand visibility of Netcom products, it is expected to continue until the end of the year. However, considering the weak overall demand, the strong Netcom products still have limited support for eMMC demand. Under the weak demand for consumer products and the sustained growth of supply and output, the inventory pressure forced the original factory to issue a low price in the third quarter for volume bound sales in the second half of the year to stimulate the buyer's willingness to purchase. However, the buyer's demand for orders is generally dominated by small quantities and multiple batches of goods, which will lead to the decline in the price of eMMC until the end of the year. It is estimated that the price of eMMC in the fourth quarter will fall by about 13~18% in the quarter.
In terms of UFS, the market situation of smartphones as the main application of UFS continues to be weak, and the sales performance in the traditional peak season is not as good as before. Brand manufacturers are less willing to pull UFS goods, regardless of whether the inventory of complete machines or parts is still high. Therefore, in the third quarter, the original factory began to seek for volume bound shipment, actively attracted brand deals at low prices, and successively reached supply agreements with some Chinese brand customers. Up to now, the original factory hopes that customers can negotiate in advance to pull goods according to next year's demand. However, because the market is generally not optimistic about next year's demand, the original factory's transaction situation is not good, and the inventory pressure has not been significantly improved, so the original factory will continue to increase the price decline to stimulate the momentum of pulling goods, It is estimated that the UFS price decline in the fourth quarter is about 13~18%, and may be further expanded.
In terms of NAND Flash wafers, even though some module factories have slightly relieved the pressure after several quarters of inventory adjustment, the overall market situation is still not optimistic, so the attitude of stock preparation is extremely passive. The demand for SSD, flash memory card, USB flash disk and other products at the retail end is still weak as consumer products continue to be weak, which cannot become a force to support the price of wafers. The supply side continues to expand the supply of wafers, and the pace of the process moving to a higher level has not slowed down. As the price downward trend is unavoidable, the pressure on the original factory to accelerate the process to optimize the cost structure. In addition, since the third quarter, the original factory has started price cutting competition, resulting in the wafer contract price rapidly approaching the cash cost of each factory. TrendForce Jibang Consulting observed that under the framework of a perfectly competitive market, the suppliers of NAND Flash intend to accelerate the decline of the price of wafer, and it is estimated that the price decline of NAND Flash wafer in the fourth quarter will be 20~25% quarter on quarter
