TAIPEI, TAIWAN: DRAMeXchange has pointed out that the Q108 revenues of branded DRAM makers, impacted by the continued low DRAM prices, fell roughly 5.8 percent compared to Q407, and contract prices and spot prices fell 19 percent and 11 percent respectively.

Except for Elpida and Powerchip, whose revenue increased in Q108 (thanks to Rexchip's strong production ramp-up), all other DRAM makers experienced a decline in revenues. As a result, Elpida and Powerchip both saw a slight increase in market share in Q108.

As for the DRAM industry market share (categorized by countries), Japan increased by 0.9 percent due to Elpida's revenue increase in Q108; Taiwan increased by 1.1 percent to 14.7 percent primarily due to Powerchip's gain in market share. Korea still sustained in the same market shares.

However, in its most recent investor conference, Samsung has announced it will increase its Bit Growth Rate from 70 percent to 100 percent. Such announcement serves as a sign of Samsung's strong will to continue its reign as a market leader in the DRAM sector.

New camps threaten Samsung's market leader position
Qimonda and Elpida shocked the DRAM industry recently, by announcing an agreement to co-develop their next generation process technology. In the aftermath of Micron and Nanya's announcement of co-operation, DRAMeXchange analysts believe that the announcement between Qimonda and Elpida again re-shuffles the competitive landscape in DRAM industry. Qimonda and Elpida's cooperation is also a sign of determination from Qimonda to develop stacked process.

With the latest financial reports, DRAMeXchange analysts believe that the co-operation between Elpida and Qimonda will boost the market share for Elpida camp will to take the lead from Samsung for the very first time and become the market share leader in DRAM industry. Taking the lead in market share is an important step in becoming the true leader in DRAM industry -- an announced goal of Yukio Sakamoto, CEO of Elpida.

However, transitioning from trenched to stacked process will require a minimum of six month, which gives Samsung plenty of time to catch up in market share if Samsung executes its strategies properly. Faced with this fierce competition for market share, the expected industry recovery in 2H08 becomes more uncertain.

Finally, DRAMeXchange analysts believe that the co-operation between Elpida and Qimonda also made Inotera's future more unpredictable. Inotera currently employs Qimonda's trench process for its 120k WPM, high capacity production line. However, with the uncertainty for 58nm and buried wordline process development, Nanya has sought out a different partner for co-operation -– Micron.

It was commonly expected that Nanya will acquire all Qimonda's Inotera shares in order to fully cooperate with Micron in developing stacked process. In light of this new announcement from Qimonda and Elpida, the industry will be paying special attention to observe whether Inotera will be producing DRAM for both Qimonda+Elpida and Nanya+Micron camps based on stacked process.