According to the research report of the storage chip research company, TBJ Technology, has released the global DRAM revenue report for the fourth quarter of 2010. In the fourth quarter of last year, the DRAM market revenue was US$8.64 billion, a decrease of 20% from the US$10.78 billion in the third quarter. Chip futures prices fell by 40% month-on-month, but production capacity increased by 16%. Jibang Technology pointed out that manufacturers' upgrades in their production processes have increased production capacity, but the advancement of 50nm-level and 40nm-level processes has led to a drop in DRAM prices in the fourth quarter. In addition to the low PC demand for DRAM and the slower upgrade of the PC memory capacity, the end result is excess production capacity and lower chip prices.
The average futures price of 2GB DDR3 memory in the fourth quarter has been reduced from US$40 in the third quarter to US$24, while the 1333MHz 1Gb DDR3 chip price in the spot market has also fallen by 37% to an average of US$1.51.
Samsung still holds the first position of DRAM supply in the fourth quarter with a market share of 40.7%. Hynix ranked second, with a share of 21.9%. The total share of South Korea's duo also rose from 60.2% in the third quarter to 62.6%. And although the revenues of the two vendors have declined, only their share has increased.
Elpida's market share dropped from 16.1% in the previous quarter to 13.6%, and Micron continued to maintain at 12%.
Jibang Technology believes that DRAM makers have become more cautious about 2011's fund dominance after experiencing bleak performance in 2010. The overall investment this year is expected to be 6.8 billion U.S. dollars, down 43% from last year's 12 billion U.S. dollars.