Storage prices are expected to rebound, and Chinese manufacturers have begun to rush to stock up

Chen Libai, chairman of memory module giant ADATA Technology, pointed out that as the trade war between Japan and South Korea intensifies, Japan may kick South Korea off its export whitelist on August 2, which will make the current memory market more complicated. In order to avoid the impact, some Chinese manufacturers are rushing to Taiwan to buy goods. This also makes the rebound in memory prices more certain, giving the overall second half of the year a strong rebound opportunity.

Chen Libai attended the press conference on the 28th to announce XPG's six major e-sports product lines and sponsor the professional e-sports team J.Storm under the Taiwanese NBA star Jeremy Lin. He said that if Japan removes South Korea from the export whitelist in the future, the impact on South Korea's semiconductor industry may expand because the more than 1,000 items involved include not only raw materials but also machinery and equipment. The scope of market impact will be wider, which will also make market participants nervous.

Chen Libai pointed out that in fact, the recent memory situation has seriously affected the market since the power outage at Toshiba in June. Among the five Toshiba factories that had power outages, three have not yet resumed normal production, which has had a certain impact on the market. After that, the Japan-South Korea trade conflict occurred again. Japan controlled the export of high-tech raw materials to South Korea, which affected the supply of NAND Flash and DRAM. In addition, the current market inventory has gradually decreased under the situation of further production cuts by various manufacturers. The rebound of memory prices can be confirmed.

Chen Libai emphasized that the spot prices of the two major memory products, NAND Flash and DRAM, bottomed out in advance at the end of June, and the cumulative increase since July has been about 20%. Driven by various factors in the future, it is expected that this wave of memory prices will change from a small rebound to a medium-term rebound pattern. Overall, the low point of the spot price of DRAM and NAND Flash in 2019 has already appeared in June, and the contract price will also reach a low point in July, and it is expected to rebound in August.

Chen Libai also said that in the face of the upcoming rebound in the memory market, some Chinese manufacturers did come to Taiwan to grab supplies, from system manufacturers to module manufacturers, in order to reduce the risks that may be encountered in the future after the Japan-South Korea trade war expands. ADATA has also prepared inventory and production capacity to meet market demand.