DRAM prices set for another slump

DRAM prices have come tumbling down over the past year and a bit. Prices started crawling back up not that long ago, but now fresh reports emerging state that prices are soon to head back in the other direction again. Good news for consumers, bad news for DRAM companies. PC makers have 2 or 3 months of DRAM supplies sitting around in warehouses because PC sales have slumped for one reason or another, many still cite abnormally high hard drive prices and global economic uncertainties as the reason behind this.

Some companies are even reporting up to 6 months excess RAM stock. In a normal operating scenario 5 to 6 weeks overhead would be kept for stability purposes however these amounts are getting out of control. The hope is that the arrival of Windows 8 will boost PC sales figures and help shift some of the backlog of inventory.

The bankruptcy of Elpida memory led many DRAM manufacturers to believe production would plummet and that they had to produce more to compensate. However, Elpida’s production stopped, demand for DRAM continued to fall and then too many companies over compensated and again we find ourselves in a market saturated with DRAM. Prices are believed to fall again this quarter, no predictions for Q4 have surfaced yet.

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