Demand for 3D NAND memory fell sharply during the third quarter of 2022, causing total NAND manufacturing industry revenue to decline 24.3% qoq, according to Search (Opens in a new tab) Market intelligence firm TrendForce.
The NAND Flash industry reported total revenue of approximately $13.71 billion for the third quarter of 2020, which Trendforce pegged to lower-than-expected numbers in terms of total shipments of end products, such as consumer electronics, workstationsand servers, associated with a generally pessimistic economic outlook and lower capital expenditures from companies.
3D NAND shipments fell 6.7% during the quarter according to the research, but this then led to average prices falling 18.3% during the period, as manufacturers sought to lower prices as part of efforts to make their products more attractive.
What is 3D NAND?
3D NAND is a variety of non-volatile flash memory in which memory cells are placed in vertical layers on top of each other, unlike 2D NAND, which has only one memory cell.
Who took the hit?
This decrease was not felt equally between manufacturers.
South Korean hardware giant SK Group’s revenue fell 29.8% qoq to $2.54 billion, ranking third among NAND memory manufacturers.
Samsung maintained its lead in the totem survey of NAND manufacturers with 31.4% market share, turning over $4.3 billion in devices for the period, despite sales declining 28.1% qoq.
In line with the broader downturn in the industry, Western Digital saw its revenue decline 28.3% qoq to $1.72 billion, while Micron reported revenue decline 26.2% to $1.69 billion.
The market outlook remains pessimistic, at least for the near future according to TrendForce.
The analyst firm expects that as a result of higher inventories and lower prices, the NAND Flash industry will record an additional decline of approximately 20% in its total revenue for the fourth quarter.
Trendforce expects that, with the exception of Samsung, suppliers will be more careful in planning output, and will look to “rebalance” supply-demand dynamics as quickly as possible, which could include measures such as cutting chip input and slowing the pace of technology migration.
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