DRAMeXchange noted that prices of eMMC and SSD products also fell by 10~11% quarterly due to shipments of OEM devices - such as smartphones, tablets and notebooks - being weaker than expected in the same period. With the price decline being greater than bit sales, the fourth-quarter revenue of the global NAND Flash industry suffered a 2.3% quarterly decrease.

“Besides facing rapidly falling prices, the manufacturers have also reached a bottleneck in their process technology migration,” said Sean Yang, research director at DRAMeXchange.

Memory makers that are developing or producing 3D-NAND Flash are encountering yield rate issues, with Samsung being the sole exception. As the cost reduction advantage associated with technology migration diminishes, branded NAND Flash suppliers posted significant quarterly declines in both their revenues and operating margins for the fourth quarter of last year.