Storage Market Undergoes In – depth Adjustment, with Technological Innovation and Industrial Investment Reshaping the Development Trend
Recently, the global storage market has presented a complex situation where the tension between supply and demand coexists with the accelerated iteration of technologies. The supply gap of LPDDR4X products continues to expand, with their prices climbing to a phased high. The prices of SSDs and memory modules tend to be stable. Coupled with factors such as large – scale investments in the artificial intelligence field and the release of new technologies, the industry is undergoing profound structural changes.
The Tension in LPDDR4X Supply Intensifies, and the Downstream Market Initiates Adaptive Adjustments
Affected by factors such as tight supply of upstream resources and shortage of PCB substrates, the shortage of LPDDR4X in the spot market continues to deepen, and prices maintain an upward trend. This week, the spot prices of LPDDR4X continued to rise, and the quotations of integrated products were adjusted upward simultaneously. The spot prices of most products have nearly doubled compared with the first quarter, and the average selling price (ASP) of LPDDR4X with a capacity of 32Gb and below has exceeded $0.40.
The impact of rising prices has been transmitted to the cost side of the terminal application market, and mobile phone manufacturers have actively taken response measures. For models equipped with SoC platforms that support LPDDR5/5X, under the joint promotion of both supply and demand sides, they are accelerating the upgrade to higher specifications. For low – end models, because the entry – level SoCs they adopt only support LPDDR4X, relevant manufacturers are considering shifting the application demand of some models to LPDDR4X products with lower capacity specifications. This trend may further exacerbate the supply shortage of low – capacity LPDDR4X. In addition, the supply resources of storage manufacturers are mostly inclined to leading Tier1 mobile phone customers, and there is a supply gap in some Tier2 customers and the mass market. The limited supply of LPDDR4X has led to the obstruction of the shipment of related products of individual mobile phone manufacturers, and may also affect the procurement demand of supporting embedded storage products in the future.
The Prices of SSDs and Memory Modules Tend to Be Stable, and the Industry Enters a Stage of Price Game
In the channel market, the price of SSDs has gradually stabilized after a slight decline last week. Although the overall demand in the channel market has not changed significantly, affected by the recent rise in the prices of upstream resources, the price reduction behavior of channel manufacturers has decreased. This week, the prices of SSDs and memory modules in the channel market have remained stable.
The industry side shows the characteristic of “price stabilization”. In the second quarter, the upstream supply side has increased the prices of some mainstream resources. At present, industry manufacturers are mainly consuming inventory, but a new round of consultations between the supply and demand sides has not reached a consensus. From the NAND price signal released by the upstream, the attitude of price increase is still maintained, which prompts storage manufacturers to pursue price stability more. This week, the prices of industrial SSDs and memory modules basically remained at the level of last week.
The Upsurge of Artificial Intelligence Drives the Industrial Chain, and the Iteration Process of Storage Technology Accelerates
Developments in the field of artificial intelligence have a profound impact on the storage and chip markets. On the 18th, NVIDIA’s H20 chip resumed sales in China, and its stock price hit a new high. Google announced on the 23rd that it would increase its investment in artificial intelligence infrastructure by 10 billion, and its performance exceeded expectations. The company had already increased its capital expenditure to 85 billion in February this year to expand its artificial intelligence strategy. Since artificial intelligence chips purchased by companies such as Google account for more than 40% of NVIDIA’s sales, their actions will affect NVIDIA’s chip procurement volume and stock price trend.
The iteration of storage technology is also accelerating. Kioxia announced that the 512Gb TLC product using the 9th – generation BiCS FLASH 3D flash memory technology has started sample shipment and is planned to be mass – produced by the end of March 2026. The 9th – generation product is based on the 120 – layer stacked BiCS55 and the latest CMOS technology. Compared with the 162 – layer BiCS6 product in 2022, its writing performance has been significantly improved by 61%, and the reading performance has been improved by 12%. In terms of energy efficiency, writing has been improved by 36% and reading by 27%. Through planar scaling, the storage density has been increased by 8%. The data transmission speed supports the Toggle DDR6.0 interface, which can achieve a NAND interface transmission rate of up to 3.6Gb/s, and up to 4.8Gb/s under demonstration conditions. This product provides a solution with excellent performance and energy efficiency for the medium and low – capacity storage market, and will also be integrated into enterprise – level solid – state drives, especially in applications that need to improve the GPU performance of artificial intelligence systems.
To meet the diverse needs of the high – end market, Kioxia continues to implement the “dual – track parallel” product strategy. The 9th – generation BiCS FLASH product adopts CBA (CMOS directly Bonded to Array, where the peripheral circuit is directly bonded to the storage array) technology, integrating the existing storage unit technology with the latest CMOS technology to achieve a performance breakthrough while reducing production costs. The 10th – generation BiCS FLASH product focuses on the future market’s demand for solutions with larger capacity and higher performance by increasing the number of stacked storage units.
Industry analysts believe that the contradiction between supply and demand in the storage market will continue in the short term, and the technological upgrading and capacity adjustment driven by artificial intelligence will become the key factors reshaping the industry pattern.