WW NAND Market at $34.6 Billion, Decline of 43% from 2022 to 2023

WebFeet Research, Inc. a non volatile memory and storage market research firm, forecasts the NAND market to be $34.6 billion, a decline of 43% from 2022 to 2023 due to demand for servers, laptops, and smartphones all dropping at the same time.

Despite the sluggish PC demand in 1H23, the NAND vendors were hopeful their ongoing reduction measures to reverse high inventory levels. The oversupply situation will self-correct through output reduction (in one way or another). The demand side of the equation has yet to stabilize – questions on the effects of recent major market changes (as in the downstream effects of ChatGPT) have not been fully realized in this new demand model. The analysts firm expects this to settle out by the end of the year though many downside surprises remain at risk.

A few NAND vendors are in dire straits with the NAND revenues declining so much. South Korea in protecting its National Assets will not let Samsung nor SK Hynix fail. Kioxia is also under the Japanese realm of protection though its investors Bain and company are not. WDC has been trying to acquire Kioxia though that would leave them overextended. Micron’s revenues have fallen substantially and have cut wafer starts to reduce oversupply as they wait for demand to return. YMTC has been wading through the technology equipment embargos yet is making some headway with their recent introduction of a 232-layer 3D NAND, how long the Chinese government support will continue as China is now entering a deflationary period that will have long-term broad effects on State spending.

In Ernest Hemingway’s novel the Sun Also Rises in which a character named Mike is asked how he went bankrupt. “Two ways,” he answers. “Gradually, then suddenly.” The question arises are we gradually slipping into a recession now, a depression suddenly, or are we gradually seeing the return of demand leading to a strong turnaround or are we one fab fire away from stimulating shortage buying.