IC Insights has updated its forecast covering 33 major chip categories, including DRAM and NAND. The updated forecast shows that after a sharp drop in 2019, memory chip sales jumped 15% during 2020, despite the pandemic. Growth is expected to be 23% this year, driven by higher DRAM prices.
The average selling price of DRAM in the first quarter of this year has already jumped 8% from the previous quarter, and almost all of the leading memory vendors have said in their most recent quarterly financial statements that they expect demand to increase in the second quarter. The memory chip market is expected to reach $ 155.2 billion this year.
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Analysts believe growth will continue in 2022. Total sales of memory chips will grow 16% to $ 180.4 billion and surpass the previous record high of $ 163.3 billion set in 2018 at the peak of the previous cycle in the memory market.
The memory market is projected to reach its next cyclical peak in 2023, with revenues surging to nearly $ 220.0 billion, breaking the $ 200 billion mark for the first time before starting another slowdown in 2024. In 2021, DRAM is expected to account for 56% of all revenue, and NAND flashes for 43%.
Although other types of memory chips (EEPROM, EPROM, ROM, SRAM, etc.) remain viable, their share will not change significantly in the near future. Note that in quantitative terms, the share of the latter is not as small as in monetary terms. This can be clearly seen in the diagram.
