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Technology Stocks : Micron Only Forum -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: ild who wrote (53448)	1/7/2002 3:10:54 AM
From: Ohkami	Respond to of 53903

Hello ild, I agree that Micron in particular may have driven the prices very low on purpose. It seemed too much kind of like a "see what we can do if you don't give up" move. It didn't kill Hynix (I've said many times before that Hynix will not go out of business for other-than-economic reasons) but it drove Toshiba out and showed Hynix creditors and owners that they better sell out sooner rather than later. I don't have any inside info on cost basis at the moment but read that for 128M it is around $2 for the top tier producers, which seems reasonable. This would imply that top tiers' Q4 will be close to break-even and Q1 may be profitable. Hynix may still bleed at current prices. As I've said for some time, as 300mm transition will dramatically improve cost position (-25%) I believe any maker that doesn't have the resources to make that transition rapidly will really bleed in the next price war. That, of course, means Hynix in particular. Ulf

To: ild who wrote (53448)	1/7/2002 6:02:48 PM
From: Bilow	Respond to of 53903

Hi ild; I've been expecting DRAM prices to remain depressed through 2002, with at least 2 of the major producers getting out of the business. It looks like the two major producers will be Hynix and Toshiba. Maybe Elpida too. But even with that, I agree that DRAM prices aren't going particularly high this year. My reasoning is that overproduction is getting nasty because of all the 12 inch stuff going on. In addition, the Taiwanese are building like crazy. Maybe if the economy zooms things will be better, but I doubt it. I should note that my ability to predict DRAM prices is pretty limited. I'm pretty good at predicting relative DRAM prices, which is a heck of a lot easier, and is all that management expects out of design engineers. The way to tell if Micron and Samsung tried to drown Hynix would be to look at their inventory levels at the end of 2001. If they were unnaturally low, then that might be what was going on. Re: "Since it didn't work ..." I was under the impression that it worked rather well. The objective is not to bankrupt Hynix, but instead to force the bond holders to recognize the futility of keeping Hynix making DRAM. If you read the trade press, they say it's a done deal. -- Carl