Hynix posted strongest DRAM sales growth in 3Q07, According to DRAMeXchange

뉴스 제공

2007-11-12 14:41

Taiwan--(뉴스와이어)--Thanks to a weaken price drop along with slow-down capacity growth in 3Q07, global DRAM sales posted a mild growth in the quarter, according to DRAMeXchange. Projecting DRAM bit growth for 2007 as a whole, DRAMeXchange estimates the rate to be 90% with ASP subjects to further drop in 2H07 due to oversupply. The research firm does not expect a meaningful turnaround in ASP trend as the oversupply is expected to persist through 2Q08 as DRAM makers generally choose to speed up their process migration to counter weak pricing, instead of trimming their capacity.

Branded DRAM makers saw their sales grew by a mild 3.6% QoQ in 3Q07 on a stabilizing price trend. DRAMeXchange records that DRAM ASP grew mildly in contract market and dropped by only 9% in the spot market in 3Q07. ASP trend among chipmakers varied in the quarter in accordance to product mix.

The blackout at Samsung NAND Flash fab during early August that prompted Korean suppliers grew their NAND Flash capacity, resulted in a QoQ bit growth of 9%, in contrast to the 24% QoQ growth in previous quarter. ASP also benefited with a stable price trend, versus to the 40% ASP decline as seen in 2Q07.

Korean chipmakers saw their market share grew mildly to 49.6% in 3Q074, followed by Taiwan makers' 13.1%. Taiwan makers had their market share decline by 0.5ppts QoQ due to the growth of eTT sales proportion, where DDR2 eTT price dropped by 7% QoQ in 3Q07.

Sales breakdown by company highlights the noticeable achievement that Hynix made in 3Q07 (Fig 2). The company saw its sales grew by 15.4% QoQ in 3Q07, thanks to the 17% QoQ shipments, as well as the 3% QoQ ASP growth in the contract market. As of 3Q07, Hynix saw 15% of its DRAM production is fabricated on 70nm.

Sales breakdown by major production camp in 3Q07 notionally maintains unchanged in 3Q07, besides Hynix's head-to-head competition with Samsung on its extending influence in the DRAM market (Fig 3). As present ASP trend suggests that DRAM makers are producing with widening losses, general market consensus is only a rapid trim in capacity could resume price to normality. But from the perspective of DRAM makers, capacity trim somehow means whittling down their power in the race at the meantime. Therefore, they try to swing the poor pricing environment by suppressing cost further down with new process capacity ramp and yield improvement. DRAMeXchange believes oversupply should maintain through 2Q08 accordingly.

웹사이트: http://www.DRAMeXchange.com