Peak time for PCs but DRAM spot prices weak

WHILE it's the silly season for news at the national level, it's the busiest season in the year for PC OEMs and the channel as they gear up for super soaraway sales - they hope.

But, said DRAM Exchange, even though it's the peak season for PCs, spot market prices on memory chips says weak. The memory watching site said that there were lacklustre sales in mainland China during July, a month usually characterised by high demand.

Prices haven't risen on the spot market, but the contract (OEM) market has shown a rise of up to five per cent for the first half of this month.

DRAM Exchange said the differences between spot and contract markets is down to three factors. The first is that many memory firms have piled up mountains of DIMMs because of the price slump in the second quarter. Meanwhile, the PC multinationals are packing DRAM content per box to higher levels, so dampening the upgrade market.

Finally, rising prices are deterring people from buying PCs, the memory watchers reckon.

The fire at Samsung will affect both DRAM and NAND flash capacity allocations in the second half of this year, DRAM Exchange believes. Prices may rise slightly but will peak in September and then will start falling again. µ