DRAM prices to ‘trend slightly upward’ in Q1 as PC makers begin stocking up

There has been plenty of news around the DRAM and NAND market over the last couple of weeks. Firstly, a Samsung facility suffered a small power outage leading to several days of production downtime. Beyond that, analysts are putting in their predictions for 2020, setting expectations for price rises. 

Trendforce division, DRAMeXchange has previously said that it expects NAND contract prices to rise in Q1 2020. Now, the analysts are updating their Q1 outlook for the DRAM market, which is moving from “mostly holding steady” to “slightly trending upward”.

This adjustment isn't due to any supply shortages brought on by Samsung's power outage. Instead, it is due to buyers wanting to build up their inventories earlier in the year than usual and as a result, there will be “an earlier-than-anticipated kickoff of the cyclical upturn”.

In the PC DRAM market specifically, negotiations over Q1 2020 contracts are still under way, so the key prediction for the KitGuru audience is that memory products shipped to PC OEMs will either stay the same price or rise slightly upward. Samsung's recent power outage seems to have dialled up a sense of urgency, as PC OEMs aim to stock up on memory now in anticipation of supply shortages later in the year.

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KitGuru Says: NAND and DRAM pricing began to fall for consumers in the second half of 2019 and while it may not shoot back up immediately, there is the potential for prices to climb again over the course of 2020. 

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