DRAM Market This Year to Be Double the Size

Some forecast that DRAM market this year will be grow two times as large as that of last year.

According to foreign press on the 20th, Malcom Penn representative of Future Horizons, which is British semiconductor market research agency, said, “the scale of DRAM market this year will be doubled to 22.8 billion dollars from last year`s 11.2 billion dollars due to the increase of PC demand, extension of memory capacity and massive appearance of articles using 256 mega DRAM. ”

He estimated, “DRAM has merits for good price, as mobile phone handset companies demand 15 percent more DRAMs, and stocks are rapidly vanishing. ” And he added, “growth ratio of main articles per bit is anticipated to be 69.9 percent, and the price per bit will rise by 19.6 percent yielding a turning point for DRAM industry. ”

Moreover, some appose to the anticipation that the price of DRAM will be downward in the second quarter (April to June) due to seasonal causes.

Major DRAM companies like Samsung Electronics and Micron Technology have decreased the production preparing for low demand season that the price would not plunge. Business circles anticipated that the demand and supply of DRAM in the late second quarter would keep balance.

Jeong-Hun Park sunshade@donga.com