The memory market has seen a dramatic turn in the past few days, with RAM prices in mainland China now dropping aggressively.
DDR5 Pricing Sees a Steady Decline in the Global Market, But It's Not a Sign of the Shortages Ending At All
Well, reporting on the memory industry has suddenly become interesting, considering that in the past few months we've been consistently talking about DRAM prices climbing and how, suddenly, major PC parts have started to witness shortages. However, with the release of Google's TurboQuant, the memory industry saw a domino effect, with major suppliers like SK hynix, Samsung, and Micron seeing their market capitalization decline, triggering a sudden 'panic' not just within suppliers but also across the broader retail supply chain. Taiwanese outlet UDN now reports that RAM prices in China have dropped by more than 30%, affecting DDR5 prices across the board.
We were among the first outlets to spot the drop in DDR5 RAM prices, and it's important to understand the primary reason behind it. Many viewers have attributed it to shortages seeing an end, but supply chain reports and market dynamics suggest otherwise. However, memory suppliers have lost 'hundreds of billions' in market capitalization in the last week alone, which is giving the perception to scalpers and hoarders about demand dropping, which is why we might be witnessing an inventory selloff. This price drop is now more widespread across global memory markets, indicating sentiment towards developments in the memory industry.
It is said that memory prices witnessed a "collapse" over the weekend, dropping by more than 100 yuan in a single day. Retailers are attributing this phenomenon to consumers' memory dropping ever since shortages began to ramp up; however, there is still skepticism in the broader memory industry, simply because of an algorithm. Retailers are panicking about Google's TurboQuant reducing the need for memory in the AI infrastructure buildout, ignoring Jevons Paradox and the fact that, with inference, the need for memory is projected to grow aggressively.
Anyways, this situation does bring a temporary relief to gamers who might be waiting on purchases, and we are expecting prices to drop more steadily across US retailers, but yet again, these drops could be short-lived, depending upon how the memory markets evolve.
About the author: Muhammad Zuhair is a hardware and technology reporter for Wccftech, specializing in the semiconductor industry and the complex interplay between technology, manufacturing, and geopolitics. His coverage focuses on the corporate strategies and technological roadmaps of industry giants like TSMC, NVIDIA, Samsung, and Intel. Zuhair's expertise lies in deconstructing complex topics such as fabrication nodes (e.g., 2nm process), the economic impact of policies like the CHIPS Act, and the strategic development of AI infrastructure from NVIDIA, AMD and Intel.
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