You may not recognize the name Nanya in the same way you might Samsung, SK Hynix, and Micron, but it is still a major player in the DRAM manufacturing industry. In fact, Nanya Technology Corporation is the world's fourth-largest DRAM manufacturer. So when it reveals that a price correction is on the way, it's worth sitting up and listening.
Here, 'correction' basically means price drop. That's right, in these days of silicon shortages and frustratingly high prices, RAM is one of the few things that isn't in short supply or needlessly expensive. Great news for anyone looking to upgrade their system, although probably not so great news for all the companies mentioned so far.
The reason for this impending price drop, expected to happen by the end of the year, is because demand is simply not as high as expected. This is partly due to the aforementioned components shortages, with factory closures due to Covid-19, and high inflation in the region not helping matters much.
The prediction for the price drop was given by Nanya during its Q3 earnings results last Friday (via The Register). You can check out the presentation yourself if you want to look at lots of graphs and PowerPoint slides on the subject.
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In there you'll discover that Chromebooks aren't selling as strongly as they once were, SSDs are looking healthy, and that the PC market is hampered by component shortages. Who knew?
One potential outcome from all of this is that we may see higher memory capacities in phones and consumer electronics, as the market tries to absorb the one thing it can actually get its hands on. In the meantime, if you've been planning on upgrading your system's memory, it may be worth putting it off a month or two. Although to be fair, the best DDR4 is pretty cheap already.
