Jiweiwang news, according to Electronic Times, industry insiders revealed that Samsung Electronics has stepped up its efforts to reduce NAND flash memory production, and it is expected that the production reduction will reach 50% by the end of 2023. Since the second half of this year, Samsung has accelerated its pace of production reduction. Samsung has reduced NAND flash memory production by about 40%.
Visit the purchase page:
SAMSUNG-Samsung Flagship Store
Sources said Samsung has cut NAND flash memory production by 20% in the first half of 2023. The 50% reduction is expected to last at least one quarter before the end of the year.
Sources also said that the purpose of Samsung's production reduction is to accelerate the transformation of its process technology to improve its product structure. Samsung will use 128-layer stacked sixth-generation V-NAND as its main technology in 2023, but aims to increase the supply ratio of 176-layer and 236-layer NAND. Therefore, it is expected to give up the production of fifth-generation V-NAND products manufactured using mature processes.
The near-term outlook for NAND flash pricing trends is bullish as market leaders slash production. Samsung's 512GbNAND flash memory wafer quotation has increased from the previous US$1.40 to around US$1.60, and the market price has reached US$1.80 or even higher. It is expected that the unit price of 512Gb wafers will reach US$2 by the end of this year. However, even if the price reaches $2, profitability will still be a challenge for original chip manufacturers.
As wafer costs increase, the price of flash memory devices such as consumer-grade SSDs and enterprise-grade solutions will increase. Nonetheless, sources pointed out that the smooth recovery of market demand will be critical to sustaining price increases in the future.
Inventories held by branded mobile phone suppliers are quite low. It remains to be seen whether the release of Huawei's new smartphones will encourage other Chinese brands to stockpile chips.
Sources said that despite the recent sharp rise in NAND flash memory spot prices, the contract market may only maintain a small increase of 5% by the end of this year.