2018 NAND Flash Sales Leaped by 14.4% to $56.3 Billon on Annualized Basis – Reportbuyer.com

In 2018, global memory market was worth $153.4 billion, surging by 23.7% from a year earlier thanks to rising prices as a result of robust demand from mobile phones and cloud services and a higher supplier concentration, according to Global & China Memory Industry Report, 2019-2025 ($2,280), from Reportbuyer.com.

Global memory demand will continue to increase as emerging technologies such as AI, AR/VR and IoT rise and downstream sectors like consumer and automotive electronics need much more.

It is predicted that global memory market size will hit $270.6 billion in 2025, at a CAGR of 8.4% between 2018 and 2025.

Memories are led by DRAM and flash. DRAM is used the most widely in systems for its performance and lower cost than its peers in spite of volatility when powered down. In 2018, global DRAM market was valued at $94.8 billion or so, a 30.2% jump on the previous year; flash memory chip, the most common non-volatile memory, finds the broadest application in mass storage field because it is non-volatile even if power is turned off. In 2018, NAND flash sales leaped by 14.4% to $56.3 billion on an annualized basis; NOR flash sales were approximately $1.9 billion; market size of other memories (including SRAM) reached a combined roughly $400 million.

Memory market segments vary in competitive pattern.

In global DRAM market, Samsung Electronics remains the bell wether sweeping 46% market shares, and its four DRAM plants all with 12-inch production lines can produce 395,000 units a month; another Korean vendor SK Hynix branching out from Hyundai Technology, takes a 28% share, making itself the world’s second largest DRAM vendor, with an 8-inch wafer production line and two 12-inch lines in Korea, an 8-inch line in Oregon, USA, and a 12-inch line in Wuxi, China; America’s Micron Technology is in the third place commanding 21% of the market and boasting a DRAM capacity of about 340,000 units per month after acquiring ELPIDA and Rexchip and integrating Inotera Memories’ capacity.

As for NAND flash, the global market has been monopolized by five vendors, i.e., Samsung, Toshiba, Micron, SK Hynix and Western Digital, with the CR5 reaching a staggering 98%. Samsung Electronics whose NAND flash capacity stands at 560,000 units per month has decided to expand Phase II of its plant in Xi’an city, China for a larger NAND flash capacity. Toshiba and Western Digital will keep their partnership, with a collective capacity of 510,000 units per month; Toshiba’s Fab 6 still under construction will start 96-layer 3D NAND capacity expansion plan; also, its Fab 7 has been kicked off, and will become operational in 2H19 for producing 96-layer-above 3D NAND and go into mass production in 2020. Micron has a monthly capacity of 350,000 units and proposes construction of Phase III of its fab. SK Hynix will build another new plant, M15, on the site of its existing plant in Cheongju, Korea, to produce 96-layer-above 3D NAND, and put it into use in 2019, with a monthly capacity of 50,000 units. Chinese player Yangtze Memory Technologies Co., Ltd. under Tsinghua Unigroup will see the capacity of its manufacturing base in Wuhan City reach 150,000 units at the end of 2019.