Fourth largest RAM manufacturer warns of impending price correction

memory
(Image credit: Pixabay (TobiasD))

You may not recognize the name Nanya in the same way you might Samsung, SK Hynix, and Micron, but it is still a major player in the DRAM manufacturing industry. In fact, Nanya Technology Corporation is the world's fourth-largest DRAM manufacturer. So when it reveals that a price correction is on the way, it's worth sitting up and listening. 

Here, 'correction' basically means price drop. That's right, in these days of silicon shortages and frustratingly high prices, RAM is one of the few things that isn't in short supply or needlessly expensive. Great news for anyone looking to upgrade their system, although probably not so great news for all the companies mentioned so far. 

The reason for this impending price drop, expected to happen by the end of the year, is because demand is simply not as high as expected. This is partly due to the aforementioned components shortages, with factory closures due to Covid-19, and high inflation in the region not helping matters much.

The prediction for the price drop was given by Nanya during its Q3 earnings results last Friday (via The Register). You can check out the presentation yourself if you want to look at lots of graphs and PowerPoint slides on the subject. 

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One potential outcome from all of this is that we may see higher memory capacities in phones and consumer electronics, as the market tries to absorb the one thing it can actually get its hands on. In the meantime, if you've been planning on upgrading your system's memory, it may be worth putting it off a month or two. Although to be fair, the best DDR4 is pretty cheap already.

Alan Dexter

Alan has been writing about PC tech since before 3D graphics cards existed, and still vividly recalls having to fight with MS-DOS just to get games to load. He fondly remembers the killer combo of a Matrox Millenium and 3dfx Voodoo, and seeing Lara Croft in 3D for the first time. He's very glad hardware has advanced as much as it has though, and is particularly happy when putting the latest M.2 NVMe SSDs, AMD processors, and laptops through their paces. He has a long-lasting Magic: The Gathering obsession but limits this to MTG Arena these days.