Excess stock and poor SSD sales look set to pull flash memory prices down by up to 10%

pcgamer.com:

Anyone who has been keeping a close eye on SSD prices will know that they've always followed a neverending cycle of going up-up-up, then down-down-down, before climbing back up. Right now we're at the zenith of this pattern but thanks to an excess of production and lower-than-expected demand, it's expected that the price rollercoaster will start a period of decline by as much as 15%.

That's according to a new report by Trendforce, a market research and analysis firm, that specialises in all things electronic. It notes that while demand for enterprise-level SSDs has been as high as ever, driven by the explosion in AI computation, the consumer sector has been decidedly uninterested in buying lots of shiny new SSDs.

The distinct lack of interest in client-based AI stuff (aka AI PCs) hasn't helped matters either and Trendforce expects that SSD contract prices will fall between 5 and 10% over the next three months. Every week, we search through all the major retailers for the best prices on the best gaming SSDs and I have to say that given how volatile some models have been, any reduction will be welcome.

However, Trendforce also notes that over the past three months, consumer-grade SSD prices have generally gone up by 8 to 10%, so this reduction will just negate that increase. In other words, we probably won't see cheaper SSDs on shelves just yet.

What should swing matters in our favour, though, is the fact that Trendforce expects an overall decline in contract prices for all NAND flash products, with the exception of server-grade stuff. But even that will only increase by a few percent. Altogether, the excess in flash chips and lower demand should pull wafer prices down, by as much as 15%.

Admittedly that's not a huge drop but it does indicate that we're about to move into a period where NAND flash products (SSDs, memory sticks, phone storage, etc) will all slowly drop in price. That will probably take anywhere between six and nine months to fully come to light, and by