The DRAM manufacturers suffer the twelfth quarterly loss

Dec 22, 2012 10:24 GMT  ·  By

As we mentioned while relaying the plans of display manufacturers, DRAM product makers are in a real bind. Nanya and Inotera are suffering from exposure to particularly red ledgers.

Nanya Technology and Inotera Memories are two dynamic random access memory makers stationed in Taiwan.

These two are among the surprisingly many that won't be able to keep their finances balanced just by cutting investment plans by 20%.

Of course, they can't exactly keep their finances balance without them being already balanced, which they are not.

Nanya and Inotera have actually been losing money for about twelve quarters, which means precisely three years.

Granted, the losses set to be reported for the fourth quarter of 2012 might be lower than during the previous three-month period, but that is not indicative of any improvement in market conditions.

Indeed, the only reason more DRAM manufacturers haven't gone bankrupt is a tight rein on supply levels.

It hasn't been going on for overly long, but manufactures have been deliberately limiting their manufacturing capacity in order to balance supply and demand, or at least offset the scales a bit.

Right now, Nanya and Inotera, and not just them, are at the figurative bottom of the pit. They hope to avoid totally collapsing like Elpida though.

According to Digitimes, they should pull off a rebound during 2013, provided PC sales pick up a bit. Regardless of how bleak things seem, the DRAM market is showing signs of recovery, however slight.

Consumers shouldn't be too worried though. There should still be a few months, maybe even a whole year, during which RAM modules will remain cheap. Price tags will go up steadily, assuming the memory industry rebind isn't a temporary thing, but they will still be much lower (to say the least) than they used to be back in 2008-2010.