Samsung president sees DRAM market worsen due to Thai flood

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(Reuters) – Samsung Electronics’ president expected Thailand floods to further hit the computer memory chip market by hurting PC production until the first quarter of next year.

Reuters / Jo Yong-Hak

The flooding since July hit production of hard disk drives (HDD) in the world’s No.2 producer of the major PC component, compounding the woes of the PC industry, already struggling with a slowing economy and a challenge from smartphones and tablets.

Samsung is the world’s top maker of dynamic random access memory (DRAM) which is widely used in PCs and competes with Hynix, Elpida and Micron.

“There is too much uncertainty in the (DRAM) market… A disruption in PC production will have a direct impact on DRAM demand. Maybe (the DRAM market) will get worse,” Jun Dong-soo, president of Samsung’s memory business, told reporters late on Friday.

His comments were embargoed until Sunday.

The DRAM industry has suffered from weak demand and over capacity, with DRAM prices slumping about 50 percent in the third quarter alone. Major DRAM makers, except for Samsung, posted quarterly losses.

Jun said, however, that a shortage of HDD is seen lifting demand for a potential replacement, solid-state drive (SSD), currently used in only a small number fraction of PCs such as Apple’s MacBook Air.

“It is true that we are seeing more orders, albeit not many, for SSD after the flood,” he said.

But he said the…

Full story from Reuters at http://goo.gl/5z30o