• Welcome to TechPowerUp Forums, Guest! Please check out our forum guidelines for info related to our community.

DRAM Industry Q1 Revenues Decline 21.2% QoQ, Marking Third Consecutive Quarter of Downturn

TheLostSwede

News Editor
Joined
Nov 11, 2004
Messages
16,231 (2.28/day)
Location
Sweden
System Name Overlord Mk MLI
Processor AMD Ryzen 7 7800X3D
Motherboard Gigabyte X670E Aorus Master
Cooling Noctua NH-D15 SE with offsets
Memory 32GB Team T-Create Expert DDR5 6000 MHz @ CL30-34-34-68
Video Card(s) Gainward GeForce RTX 4080 Phantom GS
Storage 1TB Solidigm P44 Pro, 2 TB Corsair MP600 Pro, 2TB Kingston KC3000
Display(s) Acer XV272K LVbmiipruzx 4K@160Hz
Case Fractal Design Torrent Compact
Audio Device(s) Corsair Virtuoso SE
Power Supply be quiet! Pure Power 12 M 850 W
Mouse Logitech G502 Lightspeed
Keyboard Corsair K70 Max
Software Windows 10 Pro
Benchmark Scores https://valid.x86.fr/yfsd9w
TrendForce reports a dramatic 21.2% QoQ decline in Q1 revenues for the DRAM industry, bringing total revenue down to US$9.663 billion. This significant dip represents the third consecutive quarter where revenues have fallen. A closer look reveals that increased shipment volumes were exclusive to Micron, with other suppliers noting a decrease. The ASP fell for all three major suppliers. An enduring oversupply issue, which has led to an ongoing slump in prices, is the chief culprit behind the decline. Nevertheless, the industry expects a gradual slowing in the rate of price decline following planned production cuts. TrendForce's Q2 forecast suggests a rise in shipments, but the ongoing price fall might limit potential revenue growth.

Each of the three major suppliers—Samsung, Micron, and SK hynix—reported a drop in quarterly revenue. Samsung saw a decline in both shipment volumes and ASP due to fewer orders for its newly launched devices, resulting in a QoQ decrease in revenue of 24.7%, amounting to about US$4.17 billion. Benefiting from its earlier financial reporting and the tail-end orders of the previous year, Micron climbed to the second position in 1Q23. Despite being the only supplier among the big three to record positive shipment growth, Micron couldn't avoid a minor 3.8% revenue decline, taking its total down to US$2.72 billion. SK hynix faced the steepest decline, with more than a 15% drop in both shipment volume and ASP, leading to a drastic 31.7% plunge in revenue, amounting to approximately USD$2.31 billion.




TrendForce's earlier prediction of the big three shifting from profitability to loss in 1Q23 due to a swift ASP decline came true. With DRAM prices continuing to fall, it's anticipated that Q2 operating profit margins will remain in the red. In response to this, all three major suppliers have started implementing production cuts, with Q2 capacity utilization rates expected to fall to 77% for Samsung, 74% for Micron, and 82% for SK hynix.

In terms of Taiwanese suppliers, Nanya faced a decline in shipments for the fourth consecutive quarter, with Q1 revenues dropping by 16.7%. Mainstream process nodes remained stagnant at 20 nm, lagging behind the big three, leading to a substantial decline in operating profit margins to -44.9%. However, there is a glimmer of hope as the replenishment demand for TV SoC inventory is anticipated to lift the Q2 utilization rate back up to 80% from 70%. Despite receiving several emergency orders for laptops and TVs in Q1, Winbond reported an 8.8% decline in revenues as prices continued to fall. Amidst falling prices and sluggish demand, PSMC experienced a 12.3% dip in its quarterly DRAM revenue. The company's financial performance is primarily tied to its own consumer DRAM products, excluding the revenue from its DRAM foundry services. However, if the foundry service revenue were to be included, the company's quarterly decline would steepen to 22.6%.

View at TechPowerUp Main Site | Source
 
Joined
Jan 3, 2021
Messages
2,779 (2.25/day)
Location
Slovenia
Processor i5-6600K
Motherboard Asus Z170A
Cooling some cheap Cooler Master Hyper 103 or similar
Memory 16GB DDR4-2400
Video Card(s) IGP
Storage Samsung 850 EVO 250GB
Display(s) 2x Oldell 24" 1920x1200
Case Bitfenix Nova white windowless non-mesh
Audio Device(s) E-mu 1212m PCI
Power Supply Seasonic G-360
Mouse Logitech Marble trackball, never had a mouse
Keyboard Key Tronic KT2000, no Win key because 1994
Software Oldwin
How can the small fish such as Nanya even survive in a market like the DRAM market, where many hundreds of millions need to be spent on R&D just to stay alive.
 
Joined
Aug 12, 2019
Messages
1,792 (1.03/day)
Location
LV-426
System Name Custom
Processor i9 9900k
Motherboard Gigabyte Z390 arous master
Cooling corsair h150i
Memory 4x8 3200mhz corsair
Video Card(s) Galax RTX 3090 EX Gamer White OC
Storage 500gb Samsung 970 Evo PLus
Display(s) MSi MAG341CQ
Case Lian Li Pc-011 Dynamic
Audio Device(s) Arctis Pro Wireless
Power Supply 850w Seasonic Focus Platinum
Mouse Logitech G403
Keyboard Logitech G110
How can the small fish such as Nanya even survive in a market like the DRAM market, where many hundreds of millions need to be spent on R&D just to stay alive.
They have buyers in bulk for school, government PCs in various countries, not just retail
 
Joined
Jun 21, 2013
Messages
543 (0.14/day)
Processor Ryzen 9 3900x
Motherboard MSI B550 Gaming Plus
Cooling be quiet! Dark Rock Pro 4
Memory 32GB GSkill Ripjaws V 3600CL16
Video Card(s) 3060Ti FE 0.9v
Storage Samsung 970 EVO 1TB, 2x Samsung 840 EVO 1TB
Display(s) ASUS ProArt PA278QV
Case be quiet! Pure Base 500
Audio Device(s) Edifier R1850DB
Power Supply Super Flower Leadex III 650W
Mouse A4Tech X-748K
Keyboard Logitech K300
Software Win 10 Pro 64bit
Well, at least DDR5 is now cheaper than DDR4 a year ago.
 
Joined
Dec 12, 2016
Messages
1,309 (0.48/day)
Its funny how pretty much all RAM chips come from three manufacturers yet there are a gazillion RAM suppliers. I mean look at some of these names: Thylove, ANACOMDA, Vszerda.
 

TheLostSwede

News Editor
Joined
Nov 11, 2004
Messages
16,231 (2.28/day)
Location
Sweden
System Name Overlord Mk MLI
Processor AMD Ryzen 7 7800X3D
Motherboard Gigabyte X670E Aorus Master
Cooling Noctua NH-D15 SE with offsets
Memory 32GB Team T-Create Expert DDR5 6000 MHz @ CL30-34-34-68
Video Card(s) Gainward GeForce RTX 4080 Phantom GS
Storage 1TB Solidigm P44 Pro, 2 TB Corsair MP600 Pro, 2TB Kingston KC3000
Display(s) Acer XV272K LVbmiipruzx 4K@160Hz
Case Fractal Design Torrent Compact
Audio Device(s) Corsair Virtuoso SE
Power Supply be quiet! Pure Power 12 M 850 W
Mouse Logitech G502 Lightspeed
Keyboard Corsair K70 Max
Software Windows 10 Pro
Benchmark Scores https://valid.x86.fr/yfsd9w
How can the small fish such as Nanya even survive in a market like the DRAM market, where many hundreds of millions need to be spent on R&D just to stay alive.

Because they make a lot of nisch products.

Its funny how pretty much all RAM chips come from three manufacturers yet there are a gazillion RAM suppliers. I mean look at some of these names: Thylove, ANACOMDA, Vszerda.
Anacomda makes SSDs too...
Asked them at Computex last year about their company name, they didn't seem to get it that it reads like a typo.
 
Joined
Jan 3, 2021
Messages
2,779 (2.25/day)
Location
Slovenia
Processor i5-6600K
Motherboard Asus Z170A
Cooling some cheap Cooler Master Hyper 103 or similar
Memory 16GB DDR4-2400
Video Card(s) IGP
Storage Samsung 850 EVO 250GB
Display(s) 2x Oldell 24" 1920x1200
Case Bitfenix Nova white windowless non-mesh
Audio Device(s) E-mu 1212m PCI
Power Supply Seasonic G-360
Mouse Logitech Marble trackball, never had a mouse
Keyboard Key Tronic KT2000, no Win key because 1994
Software Oldwin
They have buyers in bulk for school, government PCs in various countries, not just retail
Sure but the revenue reported here is the total revenue, from wafers and packaged chips (of which there are none in retail anyway) as well as from DIMMs.
 
Joined
Jan 18, 2020
Messages
695 (0.44/day)
Still just getting started. SK exports are way down in May 16% y/y. Taiwan similar.

Pretty much only growth area in Tech is machine learning "AI". Which has got to mania hype levels....

Remains to be seen what actual monetisable benefit it brings past a programming aid and chat bots. Some possibilitiy it goes down as well later in the year.
 

TheLostSwede

News Editor
Joined
Nov 11, 2004
Messages
16,231 (2.28/day)
Location
Sweden
System Name Overlord Mk MLI
Processor AMD Ryzen 7 7800X3D
Motherboard Gigabyte X670E Aorus Master
Cooling Noctua NH-D15 SE with offsets
Memory 32GB Team T-Create Expert DDR5 6000 MHz @ CL30-34-34-68
Video Card(s) Gainward GeForce RTX 4080 Phantom GS
Storage 1TB Solidigm P44 Pro, 2 TB Corsair MP600 Pro, 2TB Kingston KC3000
Display(s) Acer XV272K LVbmiipruzx 4K@160Hz
Case Fractal Design Torrent Compact
Audio Device(s) Corsair Virtuoso SE
Power Supply be quiet! Pure Power 12 M 850 W
Mouse Logitech G502 Lightspeed
Keyboard Corsair K70 Max
Software Windows 10 Pro
Benchmark Scores https://valid.x86.fr/yfsd9w
Still just getting started. SK exports are way down in May 16% y/y. Taiwan similar.

Pretty much only growth area in Tech is machine learning "AI". Which has got to mania hype levels....

Remains to be seen what actual monetisable benefit it brings past a programming aid and chat bots. Some possibilitiy it goes down as well later in the year.
Apparently chip design is one of the areas where "AI" is doing wonders.
 
Joined
Mar 28, 2020
Messages
1,652 (1.09/day)
Apparently chip design is one of the areas where "AI" is doing wonders.
Yet the ”wonderful” AI is down and cannot get up on its own.

In my opinion, AI is really hot air. Sure it can do something, but you still cannot avoid hiring people to maintain it. In other words, instead of paying someone to do something, you replace it with “AI”. Then you need to redirect hiring to maintain it and also keep up with the power and hardware requirements. And chip designing AI does not eliminate the need for someone experienced to validate whether the design makes sense.

In any case, I feel the worst is yet to come for all these PC hardware manufacturers. PC demand have always been on the decline until COVID restrictions hit driving PC sales through the roof. To give it even more momentum, the cryptomining craze further fueled the hardware demand. What we are seeing now is probably the normal trend now that both these demands have wane. To make things worst, job lost, high inflation and high loan interest is going to sap demand away from all these nice to have. When basic needs high skyrocketed in price, people will not think about buying more RAM, SSD, etc.
 
Joined
May 11, 2018
Messages
1,001 (0.45/day)
In all revenue reports we read, after they present the gloomy results of contraction, that "the market shows signs of improving". And when the new quarter comes it's all doom and gloom again, but the bright future is just around the corner!


We are reading this for almost a year now! We had a lackluster launch of ALL new generations - CPUs are barely faster than the last gen, with much more expensive platforms. GPUs are almost a joke - most cards have worse price / performance than the last gen they are replacing. SSDs are just a joke now, hot, expensive and not any faster than two generations ago, if you look at user experience.

And with inflation, job insecurities people just don't seem to be excited about buying this mediocrity.
 
Joined
Jan 11, 2022
Messages
508 (0.59/day)
2 years of artificially pumped up demand will bite at some point and that point is now.
bad part is that it was done with systems that won’t need replacing for a couple of more years.

I could add 32gb extra but I doubt that’s going to pull the market out of a slump
 
Top