DRAM Market To Begin Downturn In September

Market conditions for DRAM suppliers will take a turn for the worse in September, according to iSuppli Corp. The research firm previously forecasted that DRAM prices would experience a correction in October, but now believes a pricing decline will come one month earlier. DRAM suppliers' profitability will dwindle in the fourth quarter with iSuppli's predicted possiblity of double-digit sequential price declines. The downturn follows a period of relative strength that brought an end to a phase of severe erosion in the second quarter, iSuppli says. Suppliers' efforts to cut production starting in the third quarter will play an important long-term role in strengthening the DRAM market, iSuppli says. Because of this, iSuppli remains optimistic about DRAM market conditions in 2008. It predicts global DRAM revenue will rise by 17.5 percent in 2008, following weak growth of less than 2 percent in 2007.