The production capacity of the three major storage manufacturers has been comprehensively increased

Source: Tiantian IC

    AI drives storage demand, with Samsung, SK Hynix, and Micron all increasing their crop utilization rates in the first half of 2024. Samsung‘s first quarter saw an increase from 77% to 81%, and the second quarter saw a further increase from 85% to 89%; SK Hynix increased from 92% to 94% in the first season and continued to increase to 95% in the second season; Meiguang‘s first season has been upgraded from 95% to 98%.

    There is a market view that this round of storage chip price reversal is a typical result of mutual achievement between supply and demand in the industry. For chip manufacturers, after experiencing a heavy blow in the industry in 2022, storage giants represented by Samsung Electronics and SK Hynix have experienced significant performance declines or even losses. Therefore, "price increases" and "production reductions" have become a consensus among storage manufacturers.

    Industry insiders believe that the increase in factory turnover and capital expenditure mainly reflects the completion of inventory reduction. Starting from the fourth quarter of 2023, demand for mobile phones and PCs has improved, and with the rise of AI, AI servers, AI PCs, and AI phones have been listed one after another, driving up demand for storage. It is expected that the three major suppliers will continue to reduce production until mid-2024, and capital expenditure and output will focus on more profitable products such as High Frequency Wide Storage (HBM) and DDR5.

    In addition, according to Canalys, it is expected that multiple AIPC products will be launched starting from 2024, driving the rapid growth of AIPC shipments from 25 million units in 2022 to at least 50 million units, accounting for approximately 19% of the overall PC shipments. The shipment volume is expected to exceed 175 million units in 2027, accounting for 60% of the overall PC market share and becoming the mainstream product in the PC market. It is expected that with the continuous improvement of AIPC performance, the memory and flash memory capacity it carries will also continue to grow, and AIPC will become an important driving force for the growth of the storage industry in the coming years.