Against the backdrop of a slowdown in semiconductor prices, the Bank of Korea and domestic and foreign market research agencies have predicted that the semiconductor boom is expected to rebound next year. Most current forecasts point out that after the semiconductor price bottoms out early next year, it will start to rebound in the middle of the year, but based on the rebound brought by the Base Effect, the level of recovery is still different from the prosperity of 2016-2017.

According to Korean media reports, the November import and export price index released by the Bank of Korea on the 13th showed that the price of semiconductor DRAM exports (based on the Korean won) was 49.5% lower than the same period last year. Affected by the decline in semiconductor transaction prices, DRAM export prices have fallen for 11 consecutive months from January this year to last month. According to statistics from the market research agency DRAMeXchange, the fixed price for a large number of DRAM (8Gb) transactions has fallen from $ 7.3 in October last year to $ 2.8 in November this year.

As semiconductor prices fell, South Korean export indicators also deteriorated. Based on January to October of this year, compared with the same period last year, South Korea ’s exports were reduced by 10.4%. The Korean Trade Association expects that total exports this year will be about 60 billion US dollars less than last year, of which 30 billion US dollars will be affected by the decline in semiconductor prices.

As 5G commercialization begins around the world, semiconductor demand will increase accordingly. The sluggish semiconductor industry this year is expected to slowly recover next year. The decline in semiconductor prices has also begun to slow in the second half of the year. Although DRAM prices in July fell 11.2% from the previous month, prices in August and September were flat, and the decline in October and November was only 3.4%. The average price of NAND flash (128Gb) is $ 4.3, which is the same as last month. In addition, the sales of semiconductor manufacturing equipment companies that can predict the prosperity of the semiconductor industry have begun to show an upward trend. The sales of global semiconductor equipment manufacturers ASML in the third quarter were 7.6% higher than the same period last year. Although the previous quarter fell by 6.3%, the third quarter was converted. The situation.

However, various agencies have different predictions on the speed of the semiconductor industry. The Bank of Korea predicts that from the recent changes in memory unit prices and leading indicators, the global semiconductor and Korean semiconductor industries are expected to pick up in the middle of next year. However, the Nomura Securities Research Center expects that the prices of flash memory and DRAM will rebound in the first half of next year, but it is expected to return to the semiconductor glory in 2021. The LG Economic Research Institute believes that investment in new industries is shrinking, and the time for semiconductor recovery may be delayed.