Memory and Storage: a perspective from Singapore
Someone’s note of recent comments made by Morgan Stanley’s Shawn Kim has been circulating today. This was thought to be the reason for the pullback in the Asian morning session.
These comments were apparently made a few times over the course of the last two weeks. The note summarising the comments is reproduced below:
Shawn Kim bearish take on memory
NAND
-Module makers - inventory 13 weeks, covid peak was 15 weeks
“Demand evaporated”
- Rate of change of price hikes slowing to 5% qoq in Q4 - less of a need to pull forward, opportunity cost of pulling in demand much lower
- CSPs say they have healthy inventory - one of the CSP Tencent said covered for 90% - NAND spot price dropping last 2m - Think demand and supply converging
-CXMT supply ramping up quickly
- DRAM - if NAND goes down, sell DRAM also
- HBM - capping at +40% (say based on Trend force)
- Joe Moore checks why different? - Joe checks with US CSPs, US too bullish on AI
Funda argues that Mr Kim draws from information in the Chinese market, but it is the US NAND market that is driving pricing.
Mr Kim’s view also runs counter to the sentiment at a small industry event I attended yesterday, where I spoke with folks in South East Asia who deeply involved in standing up data centers as quickly as they can: