NAND flash contract prices have continued their downward trend for the second half of November, data gathered by DRAMeXchange show. Short lead-time orders for SSDs emerged to stimulate chip demand, but oversupply remains causing prices to fall.

The floods in Thailand in the last couple of months led to tight supplies of hard drives and related key components, causing disruptions to the electronics supply chain. As an alternative to HDDs, SSDs were being demanded propelling consumption of NAND flash memory, DRAMeXchange said.

However, due to the flooding, disrupted DSC supplies negatively affected flash memory card demand and shipments in late November, DRAMeXchange indicated. Meanwhile, overall NAND-chip shipments to the PC, smartphone and tablet sectors remained weak during the period.

Sluggish channel sales of NAND flash-based devices in Europe and the US was another factor causing chip prices to continue their decline in the latter part of November, DRAMeXchange added.

Accordingly, contract prices for mainstream MLC chips fell by 4-6% in the second half of November, with 32Gb parts seeing the largest drop, DRAMeXchange said. With the demand outlook still uncertain, chip suppliers' upcoming transition to newer 2xnm and 1xnm process technologies might impact short-term pricing, DRAMeXchange noted.