In 2021, the global memory market saw a rising trend in the first three quarters with memory prices increasing, but in the fourth quarter, the trend reversed with oversupply leading to price declines. In 2022, with the increased application of EUV by the three major manufacturers, the cost structure of DRAM is gradually changing, and NAND flash will enter the 172-layer era, potentially bringing new characteristics to the memory market.

The impact of shortages and excesses in the supply chain is evident, and memory may become oversupplied.

In 2021, driven by the commercialization of 5G and the “stay-at-home economy” sparked by the COVID-19 pandemic, the demand for chips continued to grow, with shortages becoming a bottleneck for the development of many industries. However, the market trend for memory chips did not align with that of logic chips. According to TrendForce’s senior research vice president, Guo Zhaorong, in the first half of this year, many people still worked and studied from home, and terminal enterprises continued to increase their inventory levels due to strong demand. This led to a continuous rise in DRAM memory prices in the first three quarters. However, in the fourth quarter, with the decline in demand, the DRAM memory industry shifted from a state of supply shortages to oversupply, leading to a decrease in prices.

Similar circumstances exist in the NAND flash market. Benefiting from the growth in demand for data centers, enterprise-level solid-state drives, and smartphones, NAND flash revenue set a new record in the third quarter, reaching $18.88 billion, up 15% quarter-on-quarter. However, it is worth noting that PC OEM order demand began to weaken, which could be a warning sign of a trend shift in the NAND flash market. Currently, the supply chain still has issues with shortages and excesses, and NAND Flash products are relatively abundant in supply. The accumulation over the past few months has increased inventory levels. Therefore, analysts generally expect that in the future, the momentum driving market and price growth will weaken.

Given this, people are not very optimistic about the growth of the memory market in 2022. TrendForce’s report predicts that the growth rate of DRAM supply bits in 2022 will be about 18.6%, but due to the high inventory levels of buyers and a demand growth rate of only 17.1% in 2022, the DRAM industry is expected to shift from a state of supply shortages to oversupply. However, the market monopoly of DRAM is high, and the overall value will not decline significantly. It is estimated that the total value of DRAM in 2022 will reach $91.54 billion, with an annual growth rate of 0.3%. As for NAND flash, due to the high growth rate in 2021, the demand growth rate in 2022 is expected to decline, and NAND may enter the next round of price decline.