The memory market is currently in a state of oversupply, with further price reductions being expected for both DRAM and NAND flash in Q4 2020. According to Trendforce, via the Storage Newsletter , overall memory ASPs are expected to drop by 10% for both NAND and DRAM in Q4 2020.

In early 2021, further pricing declines are expected. DRAM price reductions are due to slow down, while NAND flash pricing is expected to continue decreasing. For the consumer market, this should see SSD prices fall to new lows, which will impact the cost of pre-built systems, laptops and standalone SSD prices. In the enterprise market, SSD ASPs are expected to drop by 10-15%, with overall ASPs dropping by around 10% for the NAND flash market.

With the US' latest actions against Huawei, the Chinese giant has been cut off from its supply of foreign DRAM and NAND memory. While other smartphone manufacturers have taken up some of this supply, to take some of Huawei's market share, this hasn't been enough to prevent DRAM prices from lowering.

Demand for DRAM from server manufacturers is falling, and this will leave more NAND wafers on the market for use in consumer-grade SSDs. Lowered demand will lower SSD pricing, and this lowered pricing should allow PC builders to purchase SSD-based storage at lower than normal prices in the coming months.

Lowered NAND pricing will also help to push SSD storage further into the mainstream PC market, forcing mechanical storage further into obscurity. Expect more notebooks to ship with an SSD in its default configuration, relegating HDDs to secondary or external storage. With lowered pricing, the only major downside of solid state storage has been eliminated, giving notebook manufacturers little reason to ship laptops with HDDs.

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