Yeah, some "funny" stuff going on.
I don't think you can expect to get good indicators of meaningful increasese in NAND production from the NAND makers themselves. The MU management team has the motivation to keep the NAND buyers thinking that production will be unable to meet demand for as long as possible. The view drives higher NAND prices. Why would a NAND maker say otherwise?
So one the one hand they will be saying there will be no oversupply, demand will eat it all up. On the other hand their financial motivation with all their fabs is to produce as much as possible as fast as possible, regardless of price. If they don't produce more now, their competitors will, and whoever produces the most the fastest gets the largest chunk of the high gross margin sales. So the will all produce as much volume as possible, while trying to keep the NAND prices high by talking up demand and talking down supply.
There was an article by the Phison CEO yesterday saying that NAND prices were going to fall by 30% in Q1. Why would he say that? Well.....his company is a buyer of NAND, he probably wants everyone to think NAND is entering oversupply, prices are going to collapse, so hold off on buying as long as you can so the prices can collapse even more.
Ya gotta remember, these management guys have financial motivation for the market to think a certain way about supply (tight = NAND maker, loose = NAND buyer).
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Here's the Phison article
taipeitimes.com
Phison Electronics Corp (????), a Taiwanese supplier of NAND flash memory controllers and modules, expects stimulated demand this quarter thanks to a 30 percent price correction for NAND flash memory chips, putting the industry back on a healthier path, a company executive said. |
