The evolution of the market is making the price of the DDR4 and DDR5 memory keep falling, and in a very marked way. This is due, as you may have imagined, to very low demand and a high level of stock, a situation that is not going to change in the short or medium term, and that paints a complicated picture for manufacturers, but positive for consumers.
During the first quarter of this year, the price of DDR4 and DDR5 memory dropped by up to 20%, and according to the new prediction released by the firm TrendForce will fall again in the second quarter of this year. To better understand the situation, we are going to take a look at the data provided by said firm, which we can see in the attached table.
The data in the boxes to the left reflect the forecast decline for the first quarter of 2023, and in those on the right we can see that same prediction but for the second quarter of 2023. The expected drop was more marked in the server memory sector, but as we can see there was also a significant drop in other levels, being especially marked in the graphics memory and general consumer sectors.
For the second quarter, the price of RAM memory is expected to DDR4 drop between 8% and 13%while memory DDR5 will drop between 10% and 15%. In both cases we refer to the PC sector, where we have a general fall in the average price of between 10% and 15%. If we look at memory for servers, we find a much more pronounced drop forecast, which could reach 18% in the case of DDR4 and 20% in the case of DDR5, with an average drop of between 13 % and 18% unifying the previous values.
In the other sectors, a significant drop in the price of memory is also expected. In the case of VRAM, or graphic memory, the drop will be between 10% and 15%, the same level of drop applies to memory for mobile devices and memory for the consumer sector. On average, the price of memory in general, including all the types that we have mentioned, is expected to fall between 10% and 15% in the second quarter of 2023.
If we put this in context with the current quarter, the conclusion we can draw is that the expected fall will be less marked, since in the first quarter the estimate was for a decrease of approximately 20%. Obviously these drops should make RAM cheaper, and should have a positive impact on the price of all those products that use this component, including everything from memory kits to smartphones and graphics cards.
