South Korea's chip inventory rate hits 26-year high in January

South Korea’s chip inventory rate hits 26-year high in January

2023-03-06 08:11:04 Source: Fast Technology

According to the Korean Statistics Office on the 5th, the Korean chip inventory rate in January was 265.7%, which is the highest value in the past 26 years since March 1997.

In January, the chip shipment index (excluding seasonal factors) was 71.7, down 25.8% from the previous month. During the same period, the inventory index increased by 28% month-on-month to 190.5. A high chip inventory rate means that supply exceeds demand. Given that chips are South Korea’s main export, the outlook for South Korea’s exports and economy is worrisome.

As the prices of memory and SSD continue to drop, but users’ desire to buy is not high, this has caused Korean manufacturers to be hit hard.

According to Korean media reports, although major Korean DRAM manufacturers such as Samsung Electronics and SK Hynix are actively reducing their inventory through price cuts, insiders in Korean brokerages predict that it will be difficult for DRAM prices to rebound in 2023.

In October last year, some organizations predicted that due to the huge inventory of flash memory and SSD, it is expected that the price will drop by as much as 50% before the middle of this year. Looking at it now, this drop is not enough. The oversupply situation will cause the price of SSD and other products to continue to decline.