Spot market, contract DDR prices up, up

IT'S TRUE THAT THE big PC manufacturers have the major say in what's happening on memory allocation and with the Dramurai, but the spot market is still important.

So important, in fact, that the PC manufacturers will swoop in and buy up quantities if they feel they're being left on the back foot against one another.

And you've probably heard of the "grey market". This name is misleading because it sort of implies a hazy, fuzzy, err... grey area where CPUs and memory modules appear and then disappear.

Don't believe that for a second. The grey market is largely made up product swished onto the marketplace by the PC manufacturers themselves, when they find themselves caught with too many semiconductors and need to dispose or otherwise "broke" deals.

For example, were you aware that there are broker divisions within big PC manufacturers which play the DRAM game along with the little ones? It's all true, believe me.

Anyroad, however well they've done in getting allocations of DDR chips for the back to school season, the trend for DDR memories in Mr Spotland is still up, up, as DRAM Exchange puts it.

Figures released by it today show that a 128Mb/266 memory chip now costs around $4.20, while a 256Mb/266 chip is around double that.

It's true for contract pricing too, claims the memory site, with prices there being $3.25 and $6.25 respectively.

There's a 20% growth month on month on DDR modules from OEMs and mobo makers, the site claims. µ

See Also
INQUIRER memory channel