The global DRAM market will remain an oligopoly of three large firms over the next three years, according to Pei-Ing Lee, president for Taiwan-based Nanya Technology.
Lee believes that China's emerging DRAM companies will not be able to pose a threat to their bigger counterparts within the next three years. The competitiveness of China-based DRAM players will really depend on IP and innovation, which brings uncertainty to their future, Lee said.
The NAND flash memory market will also remain highly-concentrated with a handful of suppliers dominating the market, Lee indicated. In different countries, authorities use patent and trade secrets protection, and antitrust laws to protect local industries, particularly the memory-chip sector due to its uniform standards and high degree of market liquidity, Lee said.
Lee also expressed optimism about the DRAM market outlook for the second half of 2017. Demand will still outpace supply during the six-month period, according to Lee.
In addition, Nanya chairman Chin-Jen Wu noted the company will continue to further increase its niche-market DRAM products as a proportion of company revenues in 2017. Sales of Nanya's consumer electronics-use and low-power chips will account for as high as 90% of the company's total revenues in 2017.
Nanya will also enter mass production of chips built using 20nm process technology later in 2017, according to Wu. The company will start making 8Gb DDR4 chips using the newer node in the third quarter, and will move forward developing 20nm LPDDR4 products, said Wu.
Nanya posted net profits of NT$23.71 billion for 2016, up 38.3% on year, with EPS coming to NT$8.66. A rally in DRAM prices since the second half of 2016 and recognized gains from the sale of its Inotera Memories shares led to the positive results. |