Due to the increase in wafer prices by manufacturers and limited supply, downstream manufacturers are facing rising procurement costs. Coupled with the depletion of inventory, this has led to a significant increase in prices for related NAND Flash products such as SSDs and eMMCs, with a corresponding increase in stocking demand.
Driven by the continuous rise in prices of NAND Flash chips, SSDs, flash memory cards, and embedded products, according to the China Flash Market’s pricing, as of December 23, the consumer NAND Flash price index has risen by 8.2% since the price increase at the end of November.
Consumer NAND Flash Comprehensive Price Index Trend
Source: China Flash Market, data as of December 23
Overall SSD prices have risen significantly, with some products in the channel market seeing a cumulative increase of over 20%
According to the latest pricing from China Flash Market, this week (December 24), the overall price increase for SSDs is quite noticeable. In the industry market, the price of OEM PCIe 512GB SSD has risen from $48 to $50, the 256GB price has increased from $28 to $29.5, and the SATA 512GB SSD price has gone from $46 to $48, while the 256GB price has risen from $26.2 to $27.5.
Latest Industry SSD Pricing
Source: China Flash Market
The channel market SSD prices continue to rise, with noticeable increases. The price of SATA 120GB has risen from $12.8 to $13.2, the SATA 240GB price has increased from $23 to $24, and the SATA 480GB price has gone from $40 to $43.5.
Latest Channel SSD Pricing
Source: China Flash Market
It is noteworthy that in this wave of price increases, the channel market has seen rapid price hikes, with some products experiencing a cumulative increase of over 20% since the end of November. Analysis by China Flash Market indicates that the significant rebound in channel market prices is due to a cooling of market demand in October, leading to excessive price drops, while manufacturers have been unwilling to lower prices since the second half of 2019, resulting in severe price inversion for some products in the channel market. This has led to a strong rebound in this wave of price increases.
Price Trend of Channel SSD 240GB SATA
Source: China Flash Market, data as of December 24, unit: USD
Price Trend of Channel SSD 480GB SATA
Source: China Flash Market, data as of December 24, unit: USD
Increased Procurement Costs Lead to Rising Prices for Embedded eMMCs
Not only are SSD product prices rising, but the prices of embedded eMMCs are also increasing.
Latest eMMC Pricing
Source: China Flash Market
Initially, it was analyzed by China Flash Market that the significant price increases for embedded products would not be evident until Q2 2020. However, due to the rising procurement costs of NAND Flash chips, increasing DRAM prices, and the rapid launch of new 5G smartphones with LPDDR capacities starting from 8GB and Flash capacities starting from 128GB, demand has surged, leading to price increases for embedded products.
In fact, before the price increases in the consumer market, due to strong demand from data centers, some manufacturers had already experienced supply tightness for certain products, even allocating most of their production capacity to supply data centers and enterprise markets. Micron also stated in its financial report that high-capacity SSD products for data centers are experiencing shortages, which will drive prices up, and it is expected that the supply and demand for DRAM and NAND Flash will significantly improve in 2020.
Due to stable demand in the server sector and overseas markets, manufacturers will prioritize supply to ensure stable profits. This selective supply from manufacturers means that many downstream manufacturers cannot always purchase products as needed. As inventory is depleted, they have no choice but to accept the increased prices, and stocking demand has also increased.
Latest eMCP Pricing
Source: China Flash Market
Latest LPDDR Pricing
Source: China Flash Market
Latest UFS Pricing
Source: China Flash Market
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