Memory contract pricing for 1H Nov

DRAM contract ticked down again -- 8-10% in mainstream configurations of 1 and 2gb. Flash contract was pretty hellacious, coming in down very hard in MLC (16-20%). Oddly, 16gb SLC rose slightly but 4 and 8gb were both weaker.

The further softening in memory pricing reflects lackluster end demand and general retail sales phobia heading into the holidays. Memory companies have cut back dramatically and capacity is finally coming down but memory spending raged out of control for multiple years. The recovery will be protracted. Hopefully come January some of the weakly capitalized manufacturers in Asia will go belly up and the supply side will be reduced even further. Until then... more pain on the pricing front.