Memory Market Expected to Benefit from Chicken Game in CPU Market

Competition is intensifying between Intel and AMD in the global CPU market. A chicken game is likely to appear soon as they are drastically cutting the prices of their products.

Intel recently released 10th-generation Core X series products and their prices are about half of those of their predecessors. For example, the price of the 18-core product was lowered from US$1,979 to US$979 and those of the 14-, 12- and 10-core products were lowered by approximately 40 percent. Intel explained that the price adjustment was for high-end game users and video creators. Industry insiders, however, are saying that it is to block a rise in AMD’s market share.

The price competition triggered by global CPU market leader Intel is expected to lead to a rise in overall PC demand and an increase in memory semiconductor demand, which tends to move in the same direction as the PC demand.

Competition between AMD and Intel is likely to intensify in the server market as well in that AMD is currently very aggressive in the server CPU market. AMD’s latest server CPU products are enjoying a favorable market response now and a decline in server CPU price is expected to result in more data center and memory semiconductor demands.

Still, a rapid recovery in memory semiconductor price based on cheaper CPUs is unlikely in the near future. The market consensus is that the price will remain at the current level until December this year with inventory adjustment underway and the memory semiconductor demand will rise next year with more and more products coming with new CPUs.