HUADISK SSDs: The Best Investment You Can Make

NAND prices have in fact entered an upward trend. The storage market is becoming further polarized, with a serious gap between supply and demand. Manufacturers keep raising their quotations while end-market demand remains weak, and the trend of prices being quoted with few deals closing is evident.

The market is expected to go through a period of adjustment, and significant improvement is unlikely in the short term.

According to the latest report from a market research firm, Samsung is preparing to gradually raise NAND Flash prices until mid-2024, planning increases of 20% per quarter. This means that within two and a half quarters,

Samsung may implement three rounds of 20% price increases. In the current quarter alone, Samsung has already raised prices of various NAND Flash products by 10% to 20%.

Samsung’s move has already triggered a chain reaction: enterprise SSD prices have risen by 5% to 10%, and consumer SSD prices are expected to increase by 8% to 13% by the end of 2023.

Compared with the sharp price drops of storage products in the past, the current increases may not seem significant. However, with consecutive hikes in such a short time, increases of 30% to 40% may be seen before long.

In addition, competitors are likely to follow Samsung’s lead and raise NAND Flash prices, which would have an even greater impact on the market.

The outlook for the storage spot market is optimistic. The market saw a slight pullback this week, mainly due to softening demand, but quality spot goods are still not easy to come by and prices remain firm.

Once demand picks up, prices across all product categories will undoubtedly soar.

Storage giant Samsung released its financial results on Tuesday, showing further narrowed losses, with both the average selling price and shipments of DRAM increasing. To further improve profitability, Samsung will accelerate product upgrades, making the upward price trend hard to stop.

Due to its weak performance in NAND Flash, SK hynix has decided to continue production cuts until June 2024.

Since the end of August, NAND Flash wafer prices have risen across the board by more than 50%. Such rapid increases in such a short time have far exceeded industry expectations.

This week, end-market demand for SSDs did not improve, and the gap between supply and demand continued to widen.

Manufacturers are sticking to their strategy of controlling supply to push up prices, while end-market demand remains sluggish.

Although seasonal demand and the shipment peak of the fourth quarter are drawing to a close, the industry is still queuing up to purchase. Prices of quality goods remain stable, and buying at low prices is still difficult.