| | | DRAM prices to rise further in 1H18, says Nanya
Josephine Lien, Taipei; Willis Ke, DIGITIMES
Wednesday 17 January 2018
digitimes.com
After experiencing an impressive rise in 2017, DRAM prices are expected to soar further in the first half of 2018, and overall market situations will remain steady throughout the year despite some makers having announced plans to ramp up their production capacities, according to Lee Pei-ing, president of Nanya Technology.
Lee made the remarks at an investor conference on January 16. He said although Samsung Electronics and SK Hynix will expand their DRAM production capacities in 2018, the market will stay relatively stable as a robust 20-25% growth in demand is well expected.
Lee disclosed that Nanya already unloaded all its stakes in Micron Technology at the end of 2017, at total net sales prices of NT$63.562 billion (US$2.15 billion).
He also revealed that Nanya kicked off volume production of its latest 8GB DDR4 using 20nm process in the fourth quarter of 2017, paving the way for its return to the server DRAM market in the second quarter of 2018.
Lee expected market demand for servers to stay strong in 2018 along with the growing establishment of datacenters and applications of 5G and AI (artificial intelligence), which in turn will drive the demand for server-use DRAM.
As AI capability is increasingly applied to high-end smartphones, the DRAM capacity required for smartphone will continue picking up to the 4-6 GB level. And demand for DRAM from such consumer segments as TVs, set-top boxes, gaming consoles, mining devices, and smart voice-assistant devices will also rise steadily in 2018, according to Lee.
At the conference, Nanya also reported annual revenues of NT$54.933 billion for 2017, surging 31.9% on year. With average DRAM prices soaring 35% on year, the firm raked in gross profits of NT$24.677 billion, translating into a gross margin of 44.9% in 2017.
The company recorded capital expense (capex) of NT$29.395 billion for 2017, and the figure for 2018 is estimated at NT$11.5 billion.
|
|
