The price of NAND memory-based products could increase by around 10% over the coming months.
The price of PC components is at its highest at the moment, helped by the shortage of semiconductors. But it could get even worse in the near future. Indeed, the manufacturer of storage modules Western Digital was the victim of contamination on its production line. The consequences were catastrophic; the company lost at least 6.5 exabytes (6.5 billion gigabytes) of NAND memory. This is a very important type of memory today, since it is found in particular in consumer SSDs.
The origin and nature of the contamination have not been disclosed. At present, we also do not know whether contaminated batches have already been put into circulation. For customers who have purchased a Western Digital stamped SSD very recently, it will therefore be appropriate to listen carefully; it is not excluded that the brand will end up launching a recall procedure for certain products.
Towards a price increase?
In this case, we are obviously not talking about contamination with Covid-19. In an industrial context, this means that some units coming off the production lines have been exposed to one or more undesirable materials during the manufacturing process. For delicate products, such as computer equipment, this may result in the complete loss of the lot in question. And since we are talking about very large volumes and a giant in the sector, this episode could have very concrete consequences.
Indeed, according to a TrendForce analysis relayed by The Verge, this could result in an overall increase in NAND memory. The price of SSDs, in particular, would be affected. Indeed, Western Digital and its partner Kioxia (formerly Toshiba) would have control over nearly a third of the global NAND memory market. It is therefore a colossus whose misadventures have concrete repercussions on the rest of the industry. According to TrendForce, this will result in a 10% increase in the price of SSDs and other NAND memory-based products. A news that we would have done well without, in a context where the price of PC components continues to swell.
In the immediate future, this increase should not be felt on the price of other products. On the other hand, it is to be hoped that WD and Kioxia will recover quickly, and that the increase will be short-lived. The longer it persists, the more integrators could be forced to adjust the prices of NAND memory-based products.
