DRAM Market to Reach $100 Billion Volume This Year

[Raevenlord]

The DRAM market is expected to increase in value some 30% this year, in wake of increased demand and parts shortage due to less-than-adequate production ramp-up to keep up with the demands of modern systems integrators. Doing this, its value will jump to more than $100 Billion in value, marking the first time a semiconductor product category ever surpasses that mark. The 30% increase in value joins an accumulated 78% increase that already occurred in 2017 - a twofold increase in just two years. Who said anything about cryptocurrency having massive increases in value?

IC Insights expects this $100 Billion threshold to be passed this year (a 39% growth), while IBS projects it to only be surpassed by 2019, with a 32% growth for 2018. Still, that's a small differing window which matters little in the grand scheme of things.



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[FreedomEclipse]

So..... When are prices gonna finally drop??

 

[chaosmassive]

part shortage?
did you mean price fixing?

 

[Space Lynx]

A slap on the wrist from China, some small fees (relatively speaking), probably a little bit of bribery to China through some backdoors... and the 3 DRAM makers are laughing all the way to the bank. I feel like I heard this story a dozen times now... the penalty is small enough even if we get caught we still make out like bandits... ah every capitalist company on Earth... neat stuff.

 

[NdMk2o1o]

No surprise there, dirty tactics from all dram manufacturers, I'll be sitting on my 16gb ddr4 for as long as I can, shortage of supply = +100% revenue and profit over the last 2 years, I'm not seeing the shortages myself and in fact the market is flooded with multiple sets of every speed from every different manufacturer and has been as long as I can remember, but what do I know.

 

[Valantar]

part shortage?
did you mean price fixing?

The real question is how big this market would be if it weren't for the price fixing. Lower prices should also mean higher sales, but less total revenue, so ...

 

[Flyordie]

Yea, RAM prices are ridiculous. But, they were beginning to come down slightly. Honestly, I blame a big portion on the smartphone market. You don't need a new phone every year. shoot, I am still using my Note 5. Works fine.

 

[Th3pwn3r]

Yea, RAM prices are ridiculous. But, they were beginning to come down slightly. Honestly, I blame a big portion on the smartphone market. You don't need a new phone every year. shoot, I am still using my Note 5. Works fine.

It's too bad the masses are too dumb to realize that. I have a $50 BLU phone, it works more than well enough.

 

[FordGT90Concept]

Look at btarunr's chart. The price fixing started in 2017 (a decade after smartphones debuted). Elpida was bought out by Micron in 2013, price fixing ensued in 2017 after the stuffy corporate executives were unhappy with the revenue they earned in 2016. DDR4 retails for about 40% more per capacity than it did in 2015.

The anti-trust bodies of the world should get together to prosecute the trio of price fixers. The consortium should collectively levee a $40 billion fine on them and if they do it again, they will be trust busted (broken apart). The collected fines should fund the creation of a fourth memory manufacturer.

 

[Valantar]

Look at btarunr's chart. The price fixing started in 2017 (a decade after smartphones debuted). Elpida was bought out by Micron in 2013, price fixing ensued in 2017 after the stuffy corporate executives were unhappy with the revenue they earned in 2016. DDR4 retails for about 40% more per capacity than it did in 2015.

The anti-trust bodies of the world should get together to prosecute the trio of price fixers. The consortium should collectively levee a $40 billion fine on them and if they do it again, they will be trust busted (broken apart). The collected fines should fund the creation of a fourth memory manufacturer.

While I'm not denying that price fixing is going on whatsoever, there's no doubt that smartphones are gobbling up DRAM at an unprecedented rate. 2017 was the year when most flagships moved beyond 4GB of RAM, which means they're consuming an ever-increasing portion of the largely flat production of DRAM. I suppose we should be happy Apple sticks with their rather low RAM amounts in the iPhones, or we'd be even worse off.

You don't need a new phone every year. shoot, I am still using my Note 5. Works fine.

This. The whole "upgrade every year" thing kinda-sorta made sense in 2012-13, when you got a >100% performance boost when upgrading. Now? Maybe 20% faster with negligible advances in battery life, display quality, and other factors. Not worth it. I'll be hanging on to my OnePlus 3T for a good while yet, just like I hung onto the Sony phone I had before that for near three years. This one will hopefully last even longer. Of course, there'll be pandemonium once this market starts slowing down, with companies going bust left and right once people start keeping their phones 2-3-4x as long. That'll be fun to watch.

 

[Space Lynx]

or we'd be even worse off.


.

We did just fine in the PC industry before smartphones existed. China just made up random charges?, that passed their court system, and the DRAM makers were found guilty of. None of it matters, your right.

Now it is time for me to study the Stoics. I have wasted to much time as it is on you Epicureans.

 

[FordGT90Concept]

While I'm not denying that price fixing is going on whatsoever, there's no doubt that smartphones are gobbling up DRAM at an unprecedented rate. 2017 was the year when most flagships moved beyond 4GB of RAM, which means they're consuming an ever-increasing portion of the largely flat production of DRAM. I suppose we should be happy Apple sticks with their rather low RAM amounts in the iPhones, or we'd be even worse off.

More revenue should lead to more production to keep prices competitive. But no, they add more production, they lose production, it doesn't matter what happens on the supply side, the price remains high because the trio of producers dictates it will. Look at the graph again. Look at how that love line keeps trending up. That only reflects their revenue, not supply and not demand. Maybe they'll do what they did and not care about producing more. Where does the revenue come from then? That's right, per unit price.

Processors are significantly more complex and costly to produce yet DRAM passes it up? Just a paltry 8 GiB of RAM (1 high density stick) will put you in the territory of a budget CPU. The market is rigged. It's not like all of those ARM and x86 manufacturers can just forgo using DRAM. You want one, you're obligated to purchase the other. Because of that relationship (and the fact there's only three now, and the fact they were found guilty of price fixing before) means they'll sell it for whatever they want to and it will be bought.

 

[Valantar]

More revenue should lead to more production to keep prices competitive. But no, they add more production, they lose production, it doesn't matter what happens on the supply side, the price remains high because the trio of produces dictates it will. Look at the graph again. Look at how that love line keeps trending up. That only reflects their revenue, not supply and not demand. Maybe they'll do what they did and not care about producing more. Where does the revenue come from then? That's right, per unit price.

Processors are significantly more complex and costly to produce yet DRAM passes it up? Just a paltry 8 GiB of RAM (1 high density stick) will put you in the territory of a budget CPU. The market is rigged. It's not like all of those ARM and x86 manufacturers can just forgo using DRAM. You want one, you're obligated to purchase the other. Because of that relationship (and the fact there's only three now, and the fact they were found guilty of price fixing before) means they'll sell it for whatever they want to and it will be bought.

Oh, absolutely. No doubt at all. I just take this for granted in any unregulated or weakly regulated market like this - corporations will always seek to maximize profits even in illegal ways, as it usually pays more than the fine if they're found out.

The interesting part is, for all the people crowing about "self-regulating markets" (where are they on this topic, btw?), according to their logic someone would have increased production significantly by now. Yet that hasn't happened, even if demand is increasing. That definitely speaks to a rigged system. Given that fabs take 2+ years to build and get running, this of course takes time, but this is not a surprising development to anyone. Predicting this growth in demand in 2016 would have been easy - and many did so. It's obvious that there has been cooperation across these "competitors" to not only inflate prices, but also not increase supply before it was absolutely necessary.

 

[InVasMani]

Look at btarunr's chart. The price fixing started in 2017 (a decade after smartphones debuted). Elpida was bought out by Micron in 2013, price fixing ensued in 2017 after the stuffy corporate executives were unhappy with the revenue they earned in 2016. DDR4 retails for about 40% more per capacity than it did in 2015.

The anti-trust bodies of the world should get together to prosecute the trio of price fixers. The consortium should collectively levee a $40 billion fine on them and if they do it again, they will be trust busted (broken apart). The collected fines should fund the creation of a fourth memory manufacturer.

CPU market was stagnant until Ryzen came about. Skylake wasn't a easy sell by any means so at that point DDR4 demand was far lower.

 

[FordGT90Concept]

CPU market was stagnant until Ryzen came about. Skylake wasn't a easy sell by any means so at that point DDR4 demand was far lower.

It was the first processor out to use DDR4.