1H’February mainstream NAND Flash contract price leveled

Many downstream buyers itemized inventory after the long holiday, 1H’ February NAND Flash contract price remained mostly leveled. On the other hand, the market dynamic of 2H’February NAND Flash is expected to be influenced by following factors: First, the sale of customer products on the Chinese New Year Holidays reflected market expectation. However, after the holiday, memory card and UFD retail market have entered a conventional season of slack sales. Memory card makers from March through 2Q11 will try to avoid maintaining a high inventory. That is why the researcher is expecting to see slower restock policies among buyers followed by the Chinese New Year holidays. Second, some 3C related vendors will launch new tablet PC and Smartphone in order to test market response and promote brand awareness in 1H11. Shipment of these new vendors in Tablet PC and Smartphone market is expected to increase in a bigger scale in 2H11. DRAMeXchange expects the majority of OEM orders to NAND Flash suppliers derive from some system OEM customers in 1H11. However, these more steady and long-term OEM orders will partially help to ease the effect from the conventional slack business season. Third, the Toshiba/SanDisk temporary reduction in output due to the power outage accident was resolved and expected to reach back to the normal level in March. Furthermore, the 2xnm node technology will be more mature in 2Q11 increasing the 2Q11 capacity. Due to the conventional slow business season in 2Q11, adoption of higher capacity NAND Flash storage and cost-down efforts from process technology migration, DRAMeXchange expect s NAND Flash contract price will be likely to gradually mildly decline or partly keep relatively stable starting in March.