Friday, September 2nd 2022

NAND Market Oversupply: SSD Prices could drop by 30-35%, another 20% in Q4

According to the latest TrendForce investigations, moving into the second half of 3Q22, the lack of a peak season has led to a delay in inventory destocking. Transactions in the NAND Flash market have been frosty. Buyers are watching passively and tend not to negotiate pricing. Pressure on factory inventory has reached a breaking point and manufacturers are bottoming out pricing in order to make a deal. This move will lead to a further decline in manufacturer pricing. TrendForce once again revises downward 3Q22 NAND Flash wafer contract prices and the decline of pricing is estimated to balloon to 30-35% from the original estimate of 15-20%.

In the past two years, the pandemic has promoted digital transformation and notebook computers and servers have stimulated rapid growth in NAND Flash consumption. In order to satisfy demand, manufacturers have been expanding aggressively, with their processes accelerating the output of 128-layer+ products. However, the 2H22 NAND Flash market situation has deteriorated sharply with the acute correction in purchase order demand for smartphones and laptops indicative of a market oversupply. Looking forward to 2023, the conservative attitudes of various consumer electronics brands may lead to difficulties in improving market conditions in the next year and stimulate suppliers to step up efforts to seize market share.
TrendForce indicates, due to sustained price precipitation in 2H22, if some manufacturers do not make production cuts, there is an increased possibility another wave of consolidation in the market may be triggered. In particular, the number of suppliers has not decreased and the price of NAND Flash will fluctuate greatly in the long term. At the same time, some manufacturers may find it difficult to keep up with the speed of technology migration as the transition to higher technology-level production will increase CapEx. Therefore, TrendForce believes that this wave of price collapse may be the beginning of market consolidation.

Looking forward to the price of NAND Flash wafers in 4Q22, as manufacturers have already implemented a strategy of maintaining market share at all costs, contract and spot market wafer pricing are facing collapse. Therefore, TrendForce believes that NAND Flash wafer pricing may drop by another 20% in 4Q22 and, since the industry tends to negotiate pricing in the fourth quarter and the subsequent first quarter, this decline is likely to continue to expand in the shadow of rising inventories and frosty demand.
Source: TrendForce
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22 Comments on NAND Market Oversupply: SSD Prices could drop by 30-35%, another 20% in Q4

#1
Vayra86
Hey look, we're not buying and prices drop. How would've thunk it
Posted on Reply
#2
Aquinus
Resident Wat-man
Vayra86Hey look, we're not buying and prices drop. How would've thunk it
Sounds like it's about time for a natural disaster or an unexpected loss of power. :laugh:
Posted on Reply
#3
bonehead123
All that techno-market babble BS and all they had to say is that this situation is mostly the result of mfgr's not expanding & investing in the latest tech, in favor of keeping as much $$ in their greedy pockets, exec bonuses, yachts, and vacation villas, as well as severe price gouging over the past 2 years, and now they are suffering the consequences !

Done !
Posted on Reply
#4
R0H1T
Well the other fact is more & more people are realizing they don't need that shiny new iToy, faster SSD/RAM or GPU/CPU et al every other year! And eventually this stupid (unlimited) consumption led growth model will need to end, if the earth has finite resources then you can't have infinite growth in profits/revenues etc. Though greed obviously is without bounds!
Posted on Reply
#5
DeathtoGnomes
AquinusSounds like it's about time for a natural disaster or an unexpected loss of power. :laugh:
An important statement with every news story like this. :D

This is a good time too with AM5 around the corner, prices will spike soon after taking that corner.
Posted on Reply
#6
Testsubject01
Vayra86Hey look, we're not buying and prices drop. How would've thunk it
Who could have thought, that the price hikes were unsustainable? The demand spike due to the pandemic / cryptomining / etc. was totally natural and consistent market growth. :rolleyes:
Posted on Reply
#7
nguyen
time to get some cheap NVME drives
Posted on Reply
#9
mahirzukic2
nguyentime to get some cheap NVME drives
Now waiting for the same to happen to DDR5. :laugh:
Posted on Reply
#10
AM4isGOD
Nice, might be able to replace my 2 SN850 1TB with 2Tb ones.
Posted on Reply
#11
Count von Schwalbe
Nocturnus Moderatus
Actually, this could be a really good thing for SSD makers.

Now put away your pitchforks and hear me out.

Currently, a common tactic among computer users is to use a small SSD for boot, and some large HDD's for storing files. A severe oversupply and consequent price reduction could finally reduce the venerable HDD to a true sideline/niche use in the consumer space.

This could be good for the industry - higher future sales, and good for the consumer - moar cheap flash!
Posted on Reply
#12
pcminirace
Count von SchwalbeActually, this could be a really good thing for SSD makers.

Now put away your pitchforks and hear me out.

Currently, a common tactic among computer users is to use a small SSD for boot, and some large HDD's for storing files. A severe oversupply and consequent price reduction could finally reduce the venerable HDD to a true sideline/niche use in the consumer space.

This could be good for the industry - higher future sales, and good for the consumer - moar cheap flash!
You´re right.
Posted on Reply
#13
mahirzukic2
Count von SchwalbeActually, this could be a really good thing for SSD makers.

Now put away your pitchforks and hear me out.

Currently, a common tactic among computer users is to use a small SSD for boot, and some large HDD's for storing files. A severe oversupply and consequent price reduction could finally reduce the venerable HDD to a true sideline/niche use in the consumer space.

This could be good for the industry - higher future sales, and good for the consumer - moar cheap flash!
Yeah, I don't think that's gonna happen. That was said many times now, it never materialised. The thing is HDDs will always be better in terms of GB/$ and that's just hard to beat. So HDDs will stick around for a long time.
Nothing wrong with that.
Posted on Reply
#14
Count von Schwalbe
Nocturnus Moderatus
mahirzukic2Yeah, I don't think that's gonna happen. That was said many times now, it never materialised. The thing is HDDs will always be better in terms of GB/$ and that's just hard to beat. So HDDs will stick around for a long time.
Nothing wrong with that.
Yeah, a 35% decrease will not bring it to parity. What it might do is bring it close enough that OEMs and most DIY builders don't want to have to mess with more drives than necessary, and move to a single larger SSD for home/business computers. What I am really hoping for is the death of the 2.5" HDD.
Posted on Reply
#15
Testsubject01
Count von SchwalbeActually, this could be a really good thing for SSD makers.

Now put away your pitchforks and hear me out.

Currently, a common tactic among computer users is to use a small SSD for boot, and some large HDD's for storing files. A severe oversupply and consequent price reduction could finally reduce the venerable HDD to a true sideline/niche use in the consumer space.

This could be good for the industry - higher future sales, and good for the consumer - moar cheap flash!
mahirzukic2Yeah, I don't think that's gonna happen. That was said many times now, it never materialised.
Doubtful, as well. That would break the (price)wall between consumer and enterprise marketed hardware on memory. Data centres would just start using high capacity mainstream stuff on anything non-critical to not shell out the big bucks.
Posted on Reply
#16
Count von Schwalbe
Nocturnus Moderatus
Ok, it seems like I need to explain further. My point was that it would be close enough to convince most regular users to take the price penalty and go for the 1 or 2 TB SSD instead of the 256 or 512 GB SSD plus a HDD. Someone with a NAS or home server (or anything larger) would still go for the bulk cheap HDD.
Posted on Reply
#17
Wirko
Testsubject01Doubtful, as well. That would break the (price)wall between consumer and enterprise marketed hardware on memory. Data centres would just start using high capacity mainstream stuff on anything non-critical to not shell out the big bucks.
Consumer stuff is what Backblaze have been using all along and that's why we can get their valuable statistics of dead HDDs. The problem is that HDDs with the most TB/$ are those in the 14-18 TB range, which is very much usable for cloud providers, while in SSDs you get the best TB/$ ratio in 2 TB 2.5" SATA drives.
Posted on Reply
#18
Count von Schwalbe
Nocturnus Moderatus
WirkoConsumer stuff is what Backblaze have been using all along and that's why we can get their valuable statistics of dead HDDs. The problem is that HDDs with the most TB/$ are those in the 14-18 TB range, which is very much usable for cloud providers, while in SSDs you get the best TB/$ ratio in 2 TB 2.5" SATA drives.
I wonder if that will change as the market gets flooded with flash, though. I would think that controllers are not in oversupply, so it would make sense to use more flash per drive.
Posted on Reply
#19
The Von Matrices
Count von SchwalbeYeah, a 35% decrease will not bring it to parity. What it might do is bring it close enough that OEMs and most DIY builders don't want to have to mess with more drives than necessary, and move to a single larger SSD for home/business computers. What I am really hoping for is the death of the 2.5" HDD.
The 2.5" HDD is already dead. There has been zero innovation in the space for the past decade - no helium disks and the largest drive remains at 5TB for 12.5mm height and 2TB for 9mm height. The mainstream laptop market abandoned HDDs 5 years ago, and the last bastion of 2.5" HDDs, the desktop replacement notebook market, has done so as well now that 2+TB SSDs are close to mainstream.
Posted on Reply
#20
Count von Schwalbe
Nocturnus Moderatus
The Von MatricesThe 2.5" HDD is already dead. There has been zero innovation in the space for the past decade - no helium disks and the largest drive remains at 5TB for 12.5mm height and 2TB for 9mm height. The mainstream laptop market abandoned HDDs 5 years ago, and the last bastion of 2.5" HDDs, the desktop replacement notebook market, has done so as well now that 2+TB SSDs are close to mainstream.
I honestly haven't looked at home user grade laptops in a about 1.5 years, but they were still shipping with dual drive configurations when I was looking.

Anyways, I will stop rambling/speculating now, just my $.02
Posted on Reply
#21
spiral718
R0H1TWell the other fact is more & more people are realizing they don't need that shiny new iToy, faster SSD/RAM or GPU/CPU et al every other year! And eventually this stupid (unlimited) consumption led growth model will need to end, if the earth has finite resources then you can't have infinite growth in profits/revenues etc. Though greed obviously is without bounds!
Still rocking my i7 4770k with an rtx 2060 super and playing games released in 2022 medium to high settings. Still waiting for a need to upgrade and seriously not seeing yet.
Posted on Reply
#22
LabRat 891
Oh, goodie!
I can finally afford a 2TB Gen4 nVME to replace my 2x 960GB gen 3 drives in RAID0.
Looking forward to opening up those x570 lanes for other shenanigans.
Posted on Reply
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