The market could face madness shortly if the sources are correct. And that’s not an official statement as such, but from Digitimes they say Samsung is going to try to make a move that is as risky as it is potentially productive for its interests, but what exactly is it looking for?
Samsung wants to lower the price of NAND Flash why?
The whole sector was rubbing its hands after months of losses, after a year of chaos from all points of view, 2021 was an opportunity to return to green numbers, to regain profits and profitability.
But Samsung, a leading leader in the industry, doesn’t seem to agree and in what could be the big move of 2021, it intends to end these illusions of the weak, as it plans to lower the prices of his chips. NAND flash before the end of the first quarter of this year.
What does it mean? Well, if that’s true (there’s no security yet, these are unfounded rumors) Samsung will unleash what’s called a price war, and we all know what that means in the market.
The most relevant question is also the most obvious, why now? And on the one hand, we might wonder why the giant and industry leader is limiting itself and trying not to make more money?
The competition is more and more strong, better to sink it?
Samsung not only wants to make more money, but also wants to eliminate the competition like the rest of its competition, because the less there is, the easier it is to calculate future movements, the easier it is to dominate an industry with little money. roosters in the pen.
It is clear that a long term war always wears out more who has the least power, but if you are the number 1 giant in the industry you are forcing others to play with margins which if the final price per bracket is adjusted a lot, maybe not even able to compete.
This movement has a lot to do with two key aspects: on the one hand, the acquisition of new ASML scanners and on the other hand, the possibility of burning wafers with them for NAND Flash. If we are not mistaken very badly and after the official announcement (now) of Samsung on EUV and its chips for RAM and SSD, even losing money, you might want to force the industry to compete with lower margins and worse technology.
If this were the case, the small foundries could not offer better prices or better chips in the market, they would be obsolete. It is possible that this movement has a third branch, and it is none other than the SMIC, where we have already seen that they have a specific R&D branch focused on NAND Flash and due to their evolution, they have gone 10 nm in a very short time and they were even about to put in QLC and its NAND Flash.
Is this Samsung move a double attack? Perfectly, you eliminate the competition, stop China, keep more market and consolidate your dominance, without making or even losing money, with better technology and chips than your competition and alone. A master stroke?
