Sources based in Taiwan at memory chipmaker firms have forecasted that NAND flash contract prices will rise by 40% in 2020, as reported by DigiTimes. This will include hardware such as memory cards, USB flash drives, and solid-state drives. According to DRAMeXchange, the contract price of SSDs had been falling for a few years and only started to increase again in the second quarter of 2019 after production issues reduced NAND output.
While DigiTimes says we'll see a 40% price increase in NAND flash in 2020, in the shorter term, DRAMeXchange says NAND flash wafer contracts will increase in price by 10% quarter-on-quarter in Q1, continuing on from the 10% price increase in December.
Several factors have caused NAND flash prices to increase; these include data centre clients preparing for new projects this year and thus causing a supply shortage for enterprise SSD. Apple’s upcoming iPhones, expected in the first half of the year, have also put pressure on the supply of NAND flash hardware, further increasing prices.
With the price dropping for seven consecutive quarters until 2Q19, the recent price increases of SSDs and other NAND flash-reliant hardware has started from quite a low point and therefore consumer products may still be worth purchasing at this time. At their lowest point, SSDs were almost the same price as traditional HDDs.
If you’re in the market for new hardware and like to wait for a bargain, you should still be careful relying on forecasts as various factors could change leading to an unexpected increase or decrease in price.
Source: DigiTimes, DRAMeXchange via Hexus
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