While the world of computing, servers and PCs in general is exciting and changing, the world of semiconductors and related products is on another level. 3 weeks ago we were talking about the last leaked report on NAND Flash and also how the prices were plummeting and until when. Well, there is already a date for the slowdown and rumors of the next hike, because as we know, the good does not last long.
In 2021, we benefited from lower prices in two of the main PC components and, indirectly, also in GPUs (although this was not noticed due to other issues of its own). Prices keep going down, making it more affordable to buy cheap SSDs and RAM, but… There is a date to end it.
Cyclic slowdown reaches NAND FLASH
It is a term that all Spaniards burned after the 2008 crisis: slowdown. It will go down in history as the preamble to a debacle or an intensity problem and here in semiconductors it doesn’t lose that strength.
But let’s go through parts, since we must end this quarter of 2021 and as such, the prices of NAND FLASH will experience a marginal decrease which will be between 0% and 5% In the best case. The problem? Demand is slowing, but there are also other factors that push prices from negative to positive.
This is a chain and each link should be well tensioned and greased, so when you pull, it drives the rest. While demand from users and businesses is declining, manufacturers who until now had sufficient inventory to easily meet much higher demand are now slowing down and ceasing to be forward-thinking in their inventories. Because? Because it goes from impressive numbers to “just one” 30.8% growth, figures that they consider bad and which will logically adjust supply and demand.
Price increase for NAND FLASH
Just as the pandemic wiped out the Stability Status, the post-pandemic will now do the same, adjusting everything again and with a new perspective. Mass vaccinations around the world have brought a return to normality and offices, so the demand for laptops and external devices is dropping sharply, so it will stabilize in 2023 without a problem.
Only the server segment will experience a real rebound thanks to the incorporation of new processors and RAM, where this jump in performance is required to the maximum and it will boost demand, but not to the level necessary to maintain the current state. Enterprise SSDs will follow a different trend, as companies increasingly buy these devices to speed up tasks and leave hard drives as pure storage.
An increase in the price of NAND FLASH is expected in the first quarter of next year if nothing prevents it, so this Christmas and Black Friday will be crucial to extract more for less and each offer will be an opportunity that we do not. not know when we can come back to rehearse.
