Yes, again the shortage of chips making a dent in companies, but this time it will be for the good of all users because, curiously, of those same companies. And it is that since the end of last year we have been warning about the low production and capacity of the manufacturers of NAND Flash, something that the industry had already seen coming and that is why they took measures that are taking their toll today.
The beginning of the end for high RAM prices
There is a very clear fact that is worth reflecting on: little or no production and capacity of chips is equal to a collective fear that allows and almost forces companies to take out their wallets and acquire as many units as possible.
The forecasts in these cases fail because there is not too much reaction time due to the stiff competition, it is spent above what is necessary in an attempt to be able to keep up with sales and take advantage of the shortage that is going to arrive to increase prices and … Sometimes speculation goes wrong.
Why? Well, very simply, the manufacturers squeeze the suppliers of raw and secondary materials, the transport industry, gradually increase production and manage to maintain the price according to the contracts, exceed the expectations of the assemblers and the overflowing inventory of chips that they The latter have accumulated only fattened the coffers of the manufacturer.
8-12 weeks in advance, price drop imminent
The concern about the lack of chips in the NAND Flash industry and in particular RAM memory has been volatile. There does not seem to be a manufacturer that does not have stock and with this, the analyzes say that there is enough stock to supply up to 12 weeks, that is, 3 months of units without problems.
For this reason, the price curve is going to change and we will go from a slight rise and a flattening of it to a rather accelerated decline that will be reflected first in the fourth quarter of this year. According Morgan stanley, the fall will be only one digit, but in their report entitled “The Winter is Coming” and as if this were Game of Thrones they affirm that soon the supply of memory will exceed the demand and with it the manufacturers face a difficult environment to assimilate in terms of prices, since there will be plenty and they will have to compete on prices to get the maximum possible cut.
If this is not enough for you to wait, the analysis for next year in the first quarter is much more optimistic, where due to this situation and the cross with the data from previous cycles they result in a abrupt drop in prices of RAM memory in 2022. To be specific and finally, prices could fall up to 50% if the shortage of chips begins to see an end, something likely in this sector that does not have as many problems as the GPU or CPU.