Monday, January 4, 2010
PC shipment momentum and a possible DRAM shortage will give DRAM vendors the opportunity to remain profitable for all of 2010, according to the latest report from DRAMeXchange.
The market analysis company said that with recovering PC shipment in 2009, DRAM shortage had accelerated since August and reached a peak in October. Although the shortages eased in November and December, most PC OEMs and ODMs still indicated strong shipment momentum while the situation resulted in flat DRAM contract price during the periods. According to DRAMeXchange, capex (capital expenditures) for DRAM vendors will increase 80% year-over-year to $7.85 billion from $4.30 billion in 2009. However, the company noted that this amount is still below the low capex level of 2001 to 2003.
“We expect the capex will likely grow to the level of $10 billion to $12 billion in 2011 to 2012. We think the DRAM market will be more balanced in next two years given the discipline capex enhancement, recovering PC shipments, and other DRAM application growth. DRAM vendors can maintain their operational profitability,” DRAMeXchange said. According to DRAMeXchange, Q1 2010 DRAM aggregate demand will be slightly below aggregate supply, which will cause DRAM price to fall appropriately fall 10% to 20%. However, demand will increase. DRAMeXchange said it expects 2010 PC shipment year-over-year growth will increase up to 13%, lead by 22.5% and 22% growth in notebooks and netbooks respectively. Desktops are estimated to grow 0.6% year over year.
“We expect that content per box growth rate will be up 16% to 2.92 GB from 2.52 GB in 2009 since 4 GB is the standard spectrum for consumer models, 6 GB for high level products, and anticipated corporate replacement in 2H10 [second half of 2010],” DRAMeXchange said. “Also, we think DRAM will likely face serious shortage in 2H10 triggered by the hot PC sales and PC OEMs may pull up the inventory level to handle the shortage for 2H10. This situation will result in the warming up effect for slow season in Q2 2010. DRAM price decline will likely be eased in Q2 2010. That is, DRAM vendors will have great opportunity to remain profitable for the whole year.”
By: DocMemory Copyright © 2023 CST, Inc. All Rights Reserved
|