The world's top-3 memory IC vendors - Samsung Electronics, SK Hynix and Micron Technology - saw their combined DRAM and flash memory revenues drop 18% sequentially and 26% from a year earlier in the fourth quarter of 2018 due to seasonality and decreasing prices, according to Digitimes Research.

Their combined revenues from DRAM slipped 17% sequentially and those from flash memory dropped 20% in the fourth quarter. DRAM accounted for 70% of the top-3 vendors' combined revenues in the fourth quarter, a percentage similar to that of the previous quarter.

As memory's prices remain in a decline, with clients taking a conservative attitude about building inventory, the vendors' revenues from the memory business are expected to continue weakening in first half of 2019 and are unlikely to regain growth until demand starts recovering from the server and smartphone sectors, driven by specification upgrades and price cuts in the second half of the year.

The top-3 vendors' revenues for the first quarter of 2019 are expected to fall another 26% on quarter and 29% on year as they decelerate their production and capacity expansion plans, according to Digitimes Research.

By: DocMemory
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