According to TrendForce's TrendForce survey, after DRAM prices officially reversed upward in the first quarter, in order to avoid falling into higher subsequent prices and insufficient supply, the demand side increased its procurement efforts in the second quarter. In addition to the continuous benefit of laptops from remote office and teaching, the inventory demand of cloud server industry has gradually recovered. In addition, the niche products such as graphics DRAM and consumer DRAM are also very strong, making the shipment growth of DRAM suppliers better than expected in the second quarter. In terms of DRAM quotation, the increase in the first quarter was wider. With shipments and quotations rising simultaneously, the revenue of the original factory has improved significantly compared with the first quarter, pushing the overall DRAM output value in the second quarter to US$24.1 billion, a quarterly increase of 26%.
timing has entered the third quarter. The problem of long and short materials in the supply chain has gradually emerged and affected the assembly of terminal products. Therefore, some manufacturers have begun to reduce the pull-out of goods for relatively long materials, among which the attitude of laptop manufacturers is the most obvious. Therefore, although the original manufacturers still maintain a positive view of the overall market conditions, as buyer DRAM inventory continues to be at a high level, the growth of some products in the third quarter may slow down. TrendForce expects that the average contract price will continue to rise in the third quarter, with the original factory keeping price increases, but the increase converges to 3~8%.
DRAM price rose sharply in the second quarter, and the proportion of advanced processes rose. The profit level of the original factory has improved significantly. According to revenue performance, the performance of the three major DRAM original manufacturers is quite consistent. The shipment volume and average sales unit price also show a "boosting volume and price" trend, and the shipment growth rate is better than expected. In addition to the increase in quotations, it will inspire purchasing and stocking intentions, and various material shortage problems have frequently been reported this year, which will further strengthen the buyer's mentality of stocking in advance to avoid becoming a bottleneck in terminal product assembly. Therefore, Samsung, SK hynix and Micron all increased their revenues by more than 20%, and the top three saw Samsung's 30.2% growth rate jump the most. In the third quarter, as the prices of the three major original DRAMs will continue to rise, and the growth rate of shipments is also quite high, and the market share will not change much.
, based on profit performance, the profit growth rate in the second quarter was very significant due to the sharp increase in quotations and the gradual increase in the proportion of advanced processes. Since the first quarter was in the early stage of mass production of 1Znm, Samsung's yield rate was low, and it had officially increased its mass production by the second quarter, driving its operating profit rate to 46% from 34% to 46%; SK Hynix also increased its profit rate to 38% due to the increase in the yield rate of the new process; and Micron's quotation increase in the quarterly range (March to May) of this financial report was roughly equivalent to that of the Korean factory, and its operating profit rate also rose from 26% in the previous quarter to 37%. It is estimated that with the rise of volume and price in the third quarter, the original factory profit will continue to rise, while the leading manufacturer Samsung's operating rate of profit will be expected to reach 50%, returning to the level of nearly three years ago.
The popularity of Specialty DRAM in the second quarter remains unabated. The performance of Taiwanese manufacturers is no less than that of the three original manufacturers
. In terms of the company, the increase in specialty DRAM quotation has remained high-end in the second quarter. The situation of customers actively grabbing goods has not cooled down, which has greatly boosted the revenue performance of Taiwanese factories. Nanya Tech was driven by a sharp increase in 30% of the quotation, and its revenue increased by about 28% in the second quarter, while operating profit rose from 17.1% in the first quarter to 31.2%. The industry emphasized that it continued to rise in the third quarter; Winbond's overall order demand was still very strong, and the quotation increase of DRAM in the second quarter was even more serious. NAND Flash, which not only drove DRAM revenue to grow by 39% compared with the previous quarter, but also increased its DRAM business to 46% of total revenue.
It is worth noting that the above two Taiwanese factories are still facing insufficient production capacity. There is no extra space before the new factory is completed and the machine equipment is added. Therefore, short-term performance growth can only rely on the quotation to rise.South Asia Technology will not be able to start production until the new factory is completed in 2024. In the short term, only the advanced process 1A/1Bnm will bring a slight bit growth; Huabang will also have to wait until the Kaohsiung Road Bamboo Factory joins mass production in the second half of 2022 to have the opportunity to alleviate the insufficient capacity; PSMC's revenue only counts the standard DRAM products produced by itself, and does not include DRAM OEM business. DRAM revenue grew by about 7% in the second quarter, but if the OEM revenue is added, the growth will reach 19%, and it also faces limited production capacity, so it needs to make a choice between logic IC and memory products.
