Nearly Every NAND/SSD Segment Down Quarterly in 1Q19 – Trendfocus

Trendfocus, Inc. has released its CQ1 ’19 NAND/SSD Quarterly Update, and the results were below expectations.

Only one segment, client DFF (drive form factor), grew, but client module, enterprise SATA, enterprise SAS, and enterprise PCIe all declined from the previous quarter.

In total, client SSD units shipped declined 1.5% sequentially. A sharp fall in client module shipments eclipsed the 7% growth posted by DFF units. However, even though overall units declined, exabytes in the client market posted a slight increase as demand mixed upward in capacity.

Within the client module segment, M.2 PCIe is nearing 70% of all modules shipped.

Enterprise SSDs fell over 10% in CQ1. A primary reason for the decline in enterprise SSDs (SATA, SAS, and PCIe) is stagnant demand from hyperscale/cloud service providers, many of which are still liquidating SSD inventory accumulated in 2018.

From a unit perspective, the PCIe decline in CQ1 ’19 was the most extreme, followed by SATA, then SAS. SATA saw the most extreme drop in exabytes shipped owing largely to declining overall demand as customers shift to PCIe.

NAND bits shipped grew 8.3% sequentially in CQ1 as producers continue to operate fabs despite depressed demand from the SSD market. 3D NAND bits account for over 86% of all NAND.

Bits going to SSDs represented 39.4% for the quarter, with client SSD bit consumption far outweighing that of enterprise SSDs.

Mobile applications (phones and tablets) represented 39.3%, while everything else consumed the remaining 21.4% of the NAND bits shipped.