Negotiations with major manufacturers and producers for price contracts for the third quarter of this year have been completed and as such visions are set on peak season for the fourth and final quarter of the year. The first indications of this period which awaits us shortly are an increase in the prices of DRAM between the 3% and 8% respectively, which is lower than the incredible 25% from the previous quarter that we saw. What awaits us in the fourth quarter?
Minimum stabilization or decline to end the year
Everything revolves around the accumulated inventory, where the report cites several factors to be taken into account. First of all, manufacturers and suppliers have to adjust their DRAM inventory again, so the prices had to be adjusted downward to bring the entire inventory into line. In second place, we have the equipment manufacturers who, faced with pessimistic forecasts, have accumulated stocks to cover themselves in a scenario of shortage of NAND Flash
Ergo we have a curious scenario, where it is also estimated that the general demand for laptops will be lower, which logically implies buying RAM and GPUs in smaller quantities. Now and after the opening of COVID-19 restrictions by governments following the arrival of vaccines, the sector needs to stabilize, but before that was foresight and has units of any component available in the chamber, which will lead to new purchases over a long period of time to squash the stock.
The price of RAM and GPUs peaked in the last quarter
The above indicates that not only RAM memory its price will drop between 0% and 5% for the last quarter of the year, but as we saw at the start of the week we are facing a very interesting movement in the GPU market, where VRAMs will be dragged in its price and graphics cards are slowly approaching the MSRP.
The report cites verbatim that there is weakness in supply and demand, especially in GPUs, where cryptocurrencies are throwing the acquisition of more graphics cards to the ground and the shelves are starting to fill with models. , but the price is still very high.
Speaking of future trends, there are rumors that the fall will continue into 2022 and will be gradual and slow, so until spring we might not see prices in line with what the market says. This would make the price drop very similar on the upward curve, but not so brutal, as there is still a long way to go to recover the price levels as at the end of 2019.
This reduction is only a palliative, which should be postponed in time or increased to return to normal prices, otherwise we will continue to overpay in 2022.
