Samsung strike to have no immediate impact on memory production
The Samsung Electronics Union is reportedly planning to strike on June 7. However, analysts at TrendForce believe that this strike will have no impact on DRAM and NAND Flash production – nor will it cause any shipment shortages.
Furthermore, spot prices for DRAM and NAND Flash had been falling before the strike announcement, and this downward trend has not changed since then.
The South Korean company's global share och both DRAM and NAND Flash output last year was 46.8% and 32.4%, respectively. Despite the fact that South Korean facilities account for 46.8% of worldwide DRAM production and around 17.8% of global NAND Flash manufacturing, TrendForce has identified four reasons why it believes that this strike will have little impact on production.
Firstly, the strike involves employees at Samsung's headquarters in Seocho, Seoul, where union representation is stronger, but these employees are not directly involved in manufacturing. Secondly, this strike will only last one day, which is within the production's flexible scheduling range.
Thirdly, June 6 is a public holiday in South Korea, which means that a decent amount of employees had already applied for leave on June 7 – which meant that Samsung likely had made preemptive adjustments in production scheduling and manpower allocation. And lastly, fabs rely mainly on automated manufacturing and need little human labour – as a result, the strike will have no significant impact on the future memory supply.
