We will start this article with the obvious: almost everything related to electronics and computers has increased in price. Keep in mind that the system is a chain where if one link is too weak the others have to withstand the tension it cannot withstand. Well, the weakest link now is precisely the one that makes the vast majority of products: China, and because of this, the price of memory, monitors and TV will increase. Because?
There are only two sectors within the industry that maintained the downward trend of 2020: memory and LCD panels, which are used in monitors and televisions. New information from Asia puts an end to this price de-escalation and will begin a still uncertain escalation in terms of quantity and speed, where China is at the center of everything.
Rising memory and monitor prices: oversupply
It is not surprising that this will also happen in a coming year in other sectors, but the first to react was precisely that of panels for monitors and TVs. Over the last year the prices for these have continued to fall, although there was some rebound at the start of the year, the reality is that the data shows a decrease in demand for 7.1% while the consignment fell a 3.1%.
For this reason, major panelists such as Samsung or LG are shifting production to panels for use in IT products, which in turn has caused major panel makers in China to switch tabs . Capacity has been increased and this trend should continue this year to reach a 8.1% year-on-year while demand will only increase by 4.4% for these LCD panels.
What happens then? Well, there’s more supply than demand and the shift of production to IT doesn’t even mitigate that fact and neither does the laptop sector, since for the first time in the last 5 years , demand for these is expected to drop. The result of all explained is an increase in the price of the panels, since the manufacturers and the panelists want to recover what they invested in the increase in production when now the demand is lower, so they would have to assume losses and logically they are not up to the task.
COVID-19 continues to wreak havoc, now in memory
Although what we are going to comment on below is another factor that will affect these panels, it is not so much the same for them as for RAM. The reason is that the manufacturing is done in China, but the rest of the process is done in Taiwan, so they are less influenced by the COVID-19[female[feminine.
But in the NAND flash and memory sector itself, this is not the case, as production is centered in China and the prices of contracts now signed in January have reportedly increased due to supply restrictions resulting from the blockages suffered. by Omicron factories, where the vaccine used by the Asian country is less effective against the variant and causes more chaos than in the rest of the world.
Power outages for factories are also felt, so we are facing a complex scenario where the shutdown implies a higher final cost for the industry and this is going to be passed on to the users, who will pay more for the same type of RAM. When will this increase in the price of RAM and LCD panels take effect? Well, apparently the new prices have already been set and these should be reflected in stores shortly.
