DRAM Demand in '99 to Surpass Supply, Dresdner KB Says
March 11, 1998 (TOKYO) -- The oversupply in the dynamic random access memory (DRAM) market will wane in the latter half of 1998 and demand will exceed supply in 1999, according to Hideki Wakabayashi of Dresdner Kleinwort Benson (Asia) Ltd., Tokyo Branch.
Wakabayashi made the prediction at the 14th Nikkei Microdevices seminar held in Tokyo.
He said that the investments in plant and equipment made by large Korean microchip producers will decline 66.7 percent in 1998, on a year-on-year basis. Samsung Electronics Co., Ltd. will invest US$700 million in 1998 (as compared with US$1.6 billion in 1997), LG Semicon Co., Ltd. will invest US$600 million in 1998 (compared with US$1.5 billion) and Hyundai Electronics Industries Co., Ltd. will invest just US$200 million (compared with US$1.4 billion).
Also, Wakabayashi said that Japan's IC makers will reduce their investments in 1998. NEC Corp., Toshiba Corp., Hitachi Ltd., Fujitsu Ltd. and Mitsubishi Electric Corp. will reduce their investments by 15.5 percent in 1998.
He forecast that total investments by Korea's big three IC makers in plant and equipment in 1999 would decline 6.7 percent, and that the total for Japan's big five IC makers would increase 2.5 percent in the same year.
Korean and Japanese microchip makers will increase their microchip investments in 2000, Wakabayashi added.
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