The most obvious question is by far the most pertinent, when is this wave of price increases going to end? As simple as it is difficult to answer without a doubt, but the reality is that the forecasts are getting worse according to the recent contracts that have just been signed for, at least, the next quarter.
Prices go up again and they won’t stop there
There are multiple reports that affirm that prices will continue to rise for this year, where the most daring also report something similar already entered the year 2022. Although we are not, at the moment, at the point experienced in 2017 and about All of 2018, it seems that we are going to do it as soon as we see any comparative graph of a component that has been on the market for a long time.
As can be seen, since the end of last year we have suffered a gradual increase in prices, of less magnitude than the last crisis, yes, but as the last contracts have been given it seems that we are going to experience a similar situation. The “when” we have it, the limit is doubt, because if this continues we could see duplicate the price of RAM and SSD memories before the end of 2022.
The problem is that there is no good news for the future, not even speculatively, since the outlook before us is uncertain and, to top it all, we are in the throes of one of the most important components of the industry: memories. RAM, in any specification.
DDR5 and LPDDR5X in the lead, the perfect “crime”
You just have to take into account the small breadcrumbs that manufacturers leave behind. Only three days ago SK Hynix announced the volume production of DDR5 chips, Intel announced two days ago that its new processors would be on the street by October, soon its servers will do the same by making the leap to this new memory.
In 2022, AMD will do the same with AM5 And it will also make the leap, where that same year the mobiles will have the LPDDR5X to their credit. As if that were not enough, it is already reporting a 15% increase in price of ECC server memories, so we have all the ingredients for a debacle similar to the one experienced just three years ago.
In order not to be so pessimistic, we have to read everything in a general concept of the industry, where this also has a lot to say and not only within what is considered a manufacturer of NAND Flash. The demand for processors and other components influences the main manufacturers and although it is going to skyrocket in 2022, it is more than likely that it will stabilize or decrease in 2023. There is not much relevant information for such a long time, but as we have already seen, the blow will be gradual and the price drop will take longer than the rise.
Bad times are coming to buy hardware …
