storage

Market research firm IDC stated that the smartphone market experienced the most severe decline on record in the September quarter, with shipments dropping by 22%, primarily affected by rising storage costs, and the situation is expected to worsen.Over the past year, rising storage costs, driven mainly by demand from the artificial intelligence industry, have harmed the profitability of the mobile industry, forcing companies to raise prices, cut specifications, and abandon models aimed at the budget market. Among major brands, Xiaomi and Oppo were hit the hardest, while Apple and Samsung performed relatively better due to their larger portfolio of high-end models.

The account pequityresearch stated that Bloomberg's research institution, Bloomberg Intelligence, predicts that the high bandwidth memory market will reach $64.1 billion by 2030, up from the previous forecast of $26 billion.The forecast cited by this account also shows that Bloomberg Intelligence expects the prices of HBM3E and HBM4 to rise by 30% to 45% in 2027, with the average price of high bandwidth memory increasing from $15.46 in 2026 to $34.94 in 2030.

Financial Associated Press reported on October 12, citing market research firm Counterpoint Research, that the ongoing construction of artificial intelligence infrastructure continues to squeeze the supply of storage chips, putting pressure on costs and supply in consumer electronics. Preliminary data shows that global smartphone shipments in the third quarter of 2026 are expected to decline by 20% year-on-year, reaching the lowest level for the same period since 2012. The storage chip crisis has impacted the smartphone market for the second consecutive quarter, with rising chip costs increasing the overall bill of materials, leading manufacturers to raise retail prices. Since 2026, global smartphone retail prices have cumulatively increased by about 20%.Samsung remains the global leader, with its market share rising to 23% in the third quarter, although shipments declined by 3% year-on-year, marking the largest share increase among major manufacturers. Apple's share rose to 22%, marking its first time surpassing 20% in the third quarter, but shipments declined year-on-year. The absence of the base model iPhone 18 this year resulted in a lower channel distribution scale in the first month of new product launches compared to the previous year's iPhone 17 series. The iPhone 18 Pro series performed better than its predecessor in China and India.Xiaomi's shipments in the third quarter declined by over 30% year-on-year, with its market share dropping to 10%. Both OPPO and vivo saw their shipments decline by over 20% year-on-year, with shares falling to 9% and 8%, respectively. Counterpoint senior analyst Shilpi Jain stated that consumers are holding onto their existing devices for longer and are considering more refurbished devices. Counterpoint indicated that global smartphone shipments are unlikely to see a significant recovery before improvements in storage chip costs and supply.

According to Gate quotes, the Hong Kong stock storage concept has declined, with Southern Double Long SK Hynix (07709.HK) dropping over 17%, and Southern Double Long Samsung Electronics (07747.HK) falling over 14%.

According to Gate market data, the decline in the U.S. stock market's storage and optical communication sectors has narrowed.In the storage sector, Micron Technology (MU) fell by 2.88%, Western Digital (WDC) fell by 2.11%, SanDisk (SNDK) fell by 5.68%, Seagate Technology (STX) fell by 3.62%, and SK Hynix (SKHY) fell by 3.67%.In the optical communication concept stocks, Applied Optoelectronics (AAOI) fell by 6.47%, Coherent (COHR) fell by 7.14%, Credo (CRDO) fell by 5.69%, Lumentum (LITE) fell by 1.57%, and Nokia (NOK) fell by 2.99%.

According to a report by ZDNet Korea on October 12, Samsung Electronics is expanding the application range of the next-generation NAND flash memory zNAND and plans to subdivide the products into three types: zNAND-O, zNAND-T, and zNAND-I, in addition to the publicly announced zNAND-O. The report states that Samsung Electronics has not officially announced the latter two products, but the industry has learned that related plans have entered the early development stage to address the increasing demand for customized storage in AI infrastructure.zNAND-O is aimed at edge AI. Unlike traditional wire bonding, this solution vertically stacks NAND in 4 or 8 layers through silicon vias, shortening the data transmission path and enhancing speed and energy efficiency. Samsung Electronics first publicly showcased the zNAND-O model at a memory-related event in the United States in August this year.zNAND-T focuses on throughput and is aimed at high-capacity, high-performance AI data centers, also expanding bandwidth through vertical stacking and silicon vias, and is referred to by the industry as high-bandwidth flash memory. zNAND-I focuses on increasing input/output operations per second, used for frequent processing of small-capacity temporary data such as key-value caches in AI inference. The report also mentions that SK Hynix is developing AI NAND product series such as AIN P, AIN D, and AIN B.

Changxin Storage (CXMT), a Chinese memory chip company, announced that it has made key progress on a new storage architecture. Samsung Electronics and SK Hynix are also advancing similar architectures to increase storage density. The company's president, Cao Kanyu, stated at an industry event in Shanghai that Changxin Storage plans to launch new server memory products based on this architecture by the end of 2026, according to a company statement.The architecture is designed as 4F², meaning each memory cell occupies an area of 4F², where F is the minimum line width of the semiconductor. The company claims that this proprietary transistor design can improve storage density and efficiency by accommodating more memory cells on a single chip. Currently, mainstream commercial DRAM uses a 6F² cell structure.

According to South Korean media reports, Samsung Electronics has signed long-term agreements for storage supply for next year, covering approximately 75% to 80%, including high bandwidth memory. The reports indicate that Samsung Electronics has finalized most contracts with major tech companies such as NVIDIA, Google, and Microsoft.SK Hynix and Micron are also accelerating the locking of supply volumes and signing a series of large-scale long-term contracts with major customers. Samsung Electro-Mechanics is reportedly close to signing a long-term agreement worth 700 billion Korean won with Taiwanese power electronics company Delta Electronics for the supply of multilayer ceramic capacitors.

According to Gate market data, U.S. stocks opened with the Dow Jones down 0.62%, the S&P 500 index down 0.45%, and the Nasdaq down 0.61%. The storage sector saw widespread declines, with Micron Technology, Seagate Technology, Western Digital, SanDisk, and SK Hynix all down about 2.5%.

According to Gate market data, U.S. stocks in the semiconductor, storage, and optical communication sectors rose broadly before the market opened on Monday.In the semiconductor sector, Lam Research (LRCX) rose 0.21%, Applied Materials (AMAT) rose 0.21%, Arm (ARM) rose 0.7%; in the storage sector, Micron Technology (MU) rose 0.03%, Western Digital (WDC) rose 1.62%, SanDisk (SNDK) rose 0.87%, Seagate Technology (STX) rose 1.56%.In the optical communication concept stocks, Applied Optoelectronics (AAOI) rose 1.45%, Coherent (COHR) rose 0.88%, Credo (CRDO) rose 1.44%, Lumentum (LITE) rose 0.88%, Nokia (NOK) rose 0.19%, Astera (ALAB) rose 1.88%.

According to on-chain analyst Yu Jin's monitoring, the largest short position established the day before Changxin Storage (Changxin Storage) went public has been completely closed 10 hours ago.This address shorted at a price of $6.5 and closed the position at a price of $8.5 after holding for 2 months, resulting in a total loss of $10.98 million, including a funding fee loss of $5.18 million and a price change loss of $5.8 million.

Tesla (TSLA.O) deployed 13.7 gigawatt-hours of energy storage products in the third quarter.

According to Gate market data, some U.S. storage chip stocks fell before the market opened, with Seagate Technology down 11.4% and Western Digital down 7.1%.

Micron Technology Chairman and CEO Sanjay Mehrotra stated that, in addition to data centers, physical AI will be the next huge incremental market. Autonomous vehicles are the first major deployment of physical AI, with memory capacities for Level 4 and above autonomous vehicles typically exceeding 200GB and storage capacities reaching several TB. Micron believes that physical AI will become an important driver of storage demand.

According to a report by South Korea's "JoongAng Ilbo," a statement obtained from a former head of equipment investment at Changxin Memory Technologies (CXMT), who has a background at Samsung Electronics, reveals that the former CEO of CXMT, Wang Ningguo, summoned the Korean team, including the individual in question, from October to December 2016. He demanded they bring back Samsung Electronics' Process Recipe Plan (PRP) and equipment information, threatening to report them to the South Korean government if they failed to do so, and warned them to verify their connections and not to lie. The individual stated that they felt scared at the time. The report mentioned that CXMT's management referred to Samsung Electronics as "Huangshan."After working at Samsung Electronics for 28 years, the individual joined CXMT and was prosecuted for allegedly leaking and using Samsung's 1.6 trillion won investment in the world’s first 18-nanometer DRAM process without authorization. In April of this year, they were sentenced to seven years in prison in the first trial and are currently in the second trial. The PRP includes the sequence of about 600 steps in DRAM manufacturing, equipment, condition values, and the companies and models of the equipment. Park, a former process design engineer at Samsung, hand-copied the relevant content into a 12-page notebook in September 2016 and brought it out, and is currently under an Interpol Red Notice.During the court hearing, the individual stated that there was a claim made during communications with the Chinese side that investment would not be provided to CXMT if they could not produce the 18-nanometer process. They later learned that the other party had wanted the technology from the very beginning, and CXMT initially had no plans to develop it independently. The pressure mentioned occurred before a meeting to prepare for the investment application. CXMT was established in 2016 with an investment of 14.4 billion yuan from Hefei Industrial Investment, a subsidiary of the Hefei municipal government, and had not been profitable for about 10 years, achieving its first annual profit last year with a net profit of 7.1 billion yuan.

According to a report by ZDNet Korea on September 28, Samsung Electronics is accelerating the construction of the first mass production line (Ph1) at the Pyeongtaek Fifth Campus (P5) and is discussing with major equipment manufacturers to move the target for Ph1 equipment installation from the originally planned third quarter of next year to the second quarter of next year. P5 is the next-generation semiconductor production base aimed to be operational by 2028, and the construction of the Ph1 cleanroom began in the third quarter of this year.Samsung Electronics had previously advanced the completion of the P5 Ph1 cleanroom, originally scheduled for early next year, by about six months, so the equipment installation is expected around the third quarter of next year. Industry insiders say that the start time for equipment installation is planned to be moved up from July to August next year to around May to June next year; others have indicated that Samsung has even proposed to deliver equipment in the first quarter of next year for temporary storage at other locations, showing a strong willingness to invest early.Discussions on the investment for the second phase of P5 (Ph2) are also progressing. Currently, Ph1 is more likely to be built as a DRAM and HBM production line, while Ph2 is more likely to be built as an advanced NAND production line, including the tenth generation (V10). Equipment industry insiders say that formal purchase orders have not yet been placed, but Samsung has discussed building Ph2 as a NAND production line with partners, and due to the long equipment delivery cycle, they are requesting to prepare relevant components in advance. Reports indicate that large global tech companies are increasing orders for high-performance DRAM and NAND for AI infrastructure, while storage companies like Samsung have limited production capacity. Samsung stated during the second quarter earnings call in July that unmet demand this year will extend into next year, and the supply shortage next year will be more severe than this year, with shortages expected to continue until 2028.

According to Gate market data, U.S. stocks opened with the Dow Jones up 0.02%, the S&P 500 index up 0.07%, and the Nasdaq up 0.1%. Tesla rose 2%, as the company plans to establish a production line for over 1,000 robots per week by the end of the year. SK Hynix rose 1.4%, Micron Technology rose 1.05%, and SanDisk rose 1.8%.