The revenue of DRAM modules rose 69 percent to $11.7 billion in 2017 – mainly due to the nearly 50 percent growth of DRAM ASP.
Due to difficulties in process migration, oligopolistic market, and lack of new production capacity, DRAM products have seen a considerable price rise in 2017, with specialty DRAM recording the highest growth, DRAMeXchange, a division of TrendForce, reports.
Despite the decreasing contribution to DRAM revenue, spot market is more price-sensitive, and suffered price fluctuations when DRAM was in undersupply. The ASP in the spot market increased by over 60 percent and contributed to the revenue of module makers.
A few large module makers dominated the market in 2017. The first top five module houses in the top 10 ranking took 85 percent of the global revenue market share. They together with the last five module houses in the top 10 ranking accounted for 93 percent of the year’s total revenue.
Kingston held on to first place benefitting from its increased DRAM shipments and higher prices. The company’s DRAM sales revenue grew by almost 60 percent in 2017 to another record high.
Kingston witnessed less growth momentum than other small- and medium-sized module makers due to its high base and its focus on DDR3 products.
Kingston offers mainly DDR3, which benefits less from the rising ASP compared with mainstream DDR4 products. Despite this, Kingston still topped the 2017 sales revenue ranking.
ADATA’s sales revenue increased by 146 percent, thanks to its low-price DRAM inventory at a high level. With flexible sales capabilities, ADATA managed to take second place in the year’s global ranking, surpassing Smart Modular Technologies and Ramaxel.
