Global DRAM revenues crash like never before since the 2008 crisis

TrendForce data revealed dramatic revenue losses in the DRAM industry. The DRAM industry lost most of its revenues in the third quarter of 2023. This decline is the second largest in the history of the sector after the fall in 2008, when the global economy was shaken by a major financial crisis.

According to the shared data, in the third quarter of 2023, the revenues of the DRAM industry fell 29 percent quarter-on-quarter to $18.19 billion. Global inflation and rising interest rates continue to shrink the demand for consumer electronics. For this reason, the decrease in DRAM demands has climbed to 15 percent quarterly.

Samsung, SK hynix and Micron crashed

Looking at the performance of individual DRAM suppliers in 3Q22, quarter-to-quarter revenue declines were observed for all top three suppliers (eg Samsung, SK hynix and Micron). Samsung was ahead of all companies with a revenue loss of 33.5 percent with $7.4 billion. Next comes SK Hynix, a 25.2 percent drop and $5.24 billion in revenue. Micron, on the other hand, earned $4.81 billion in revenue, while its revenue loss was 23.3 percent. Meanwhile, it is also seen that Samsung has lost a market share of about 3 percent to its main competitors.

On the other hand, although the data show that the sector is shrinking at a serious pace, the profit margins of the first three companies are still stronger.

Regarding suppliers’ capacity expansion plans, Samsung has gradually slowed down the transfer of legacy chip processing capacity from DRAM to CMOS image sensors due to the recent decline in demand for camera modules. Next year Samsung will increase its DRAM production capacity with the launch of the new fab P3L. However, seeing that the inventory reduction is not progressing at the initially expected pace, Samsung will slow down the technology transition to limit the increase in production. Looking at the SK hynix, it will also curb production growth next year by curbing the technology transition a bit. Moving on to Micron, with the 1beta nm process, it has pulled the mass production back a little further.