Demand for 3D NAND reminiscence dropped sharply through the third quarter of 2022, inflicting the general NAND manufacturing trade’s income to drop 24.3% quarter-over-quarter, based on analysis (opens in new tab) from market intelligence agency TrendForce.

The NAND Flash trade recorded whole income of round US$13.71 billion for 3Q22, which Trendforce linked to below-expectation numbers when it comes to general shipments of finish merchandise, equivalent to shopper electronics, workstations, and servers, linked to a typically pessimistic financial outlook and decrease capital expenditures from corporations.

3D NAND shipments dropped 6.7% through the quarter as per the analysis, however this then led to a drop in common costs of 18.3% through the interval, as producers regarded to scale back costs as a part of efforts to make their merchandise extra interesting. 

What’s 3D NAND?

3D NAND is a wide range of non-volatile flash reminiscence during which reminiscence cells are layered vertically on high of one another, in distinction with 2D NAND, which has only one reminiscence cell.

Who took the hit?

This decline wasn’t felt equally amongst producers. 

South Korean {hardware} large SK Group’s income slipped by 29.8% quarter-over-quarter to $2.54 billion, putting it quantity three within the rating of NAND reminiscence producers.

Samsung remained on the high of the totem ballot of NAND producers with a 31.4% market share, shifting $4.Three billion of {hardware} for the interval, regardless of gross sales declining 28.1% quarter-over-quarter.

Consistent with the broader trade decline, Western Digital noticed its income fall by 28.3% QoQ to $1.72 billion, whereas Micron registered a 26.2% income drop to $1.69 billion.

The market’s outlook stays pessimistic, at the very least for the close to future based on TrendForce. 

The analyst agency predicts that because of excessive stock and falling costs, the NAND Flash trade will publish an additional decline of just about 20% in its whole income for the fourth quarter.

Trendforce predicts except for Samsung, suppliers are set to be extra cautious in planning output, and can look to “restore steadiness” to supply-demand dynamics as shortly as potential, which might embody measures equivalent to chopping wafer enter and decelerating the tempo of know-how migration.

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