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Recently, Micron has been investigated by relevant Chinese departments and has become a hot topic. Many observers began to speculate whether Micron would be able to continue to gain a foothold in the Chinese market and whether it would be able to maintain its position as the top memory chip company in the United States.
In 2023, memory chip manufacturers have a hard time, and in the field of memory chips alone, Micron, Samsung and SK Hynix lost more than $50 billion in a combined quarter alone. Worryingly, according to Micron's financial report, Micron's loss in the first quarter of 2023 alone was as high as $16.1 billion.
Adding to Micron's concern, however, is that Chinese authorities have yet to release their findings on the company. This means that the main reason for Micron's huge losses may be the decline in demand for memory chips and falling prices, not just the loss of market share in China. At present, with the official announcement of Micron as a safety hazard in China, Micron's share of the Chinese market will be further reduced, and it is expected to lose up to 11% of the market share.
According to recent news, Micron's downstream manufacturers, such as Lenovo and Inspur, have begun to stop purchasing Micron's chips, which means Micron is gradually losing its customer base. In view of the current situation, Micron faces the risk of being banned in the Chinese market, and the US government has asked Samsung and SK Hynix not to fill the vacancy in the Chinese market. In this case, the biggest beneficiary may be Western Digital, the second-largest memory chip manufacturer in the United States. However, there has recently been news that Western Digital has laid off a large number of employees and plans to merge with Japanese memory chip company Kaixia.
According to US media, Western Digital plans to carry out large-scale layoffs in Chinese mainland, Israel, Japan and other countries, and the number of layoffs is expected to account for 7% of the total number of employees. Some argue that Western Digital's layoffs are merely a reaction to market volatility, influenced by the sluggish memory chip market and U.S. export restrictions.
However, according to Western Digital, the layoffs may be just the tip of the iceberg, and the company is more likely to merge with Japanese memory chip company Kaixia. Whether in the field of NAND flash memory chips or DRAM memory chips, Western Digital and Kaixia ranked fourth and fifth, respectively. Their strength in the global memory chip market is second only to Micron, Samsung and SK Hynix, occupying a large market share.
However, due to the impact of US export restrictions and the global market downturn, the world's leading companies in the memory chip field have had to take measures such as layoffs and mergers. This shows that the US chip ban not only harms China's interests, but also has a significant impact on US semiconductor companies.
Although the strength of Kaixia and Western Digital is relatively weak in the field of DRAM memory chips, in the field of NAND flash memory chips, their market share exceeds Micron, occupying 18.7% and 15.8% of the market share, respectively, second only to Samsung. Therefore, if Western Digital merges, they are expected to occupy 34% of the market share in the flash memory chip field, and even surpass Samsung to become the world's largest flash memory chip manufacturer.
For the United States, however, this is not good news. According to the information released so far, Kaixia will hold 43% of the combined company, while Western Digital only holds 37% of the shares, which means that Western Digital will lose control, and the combined company may be more inclined to the Japanese side.
Recently, the global memory chip market is undergoing large-scale changes. Micron's share of the Chinese market has plummeted due to a ban on sales that has not passed the scrutiny of Chinese authorities, and many Micron's downstream suppliers have begun looking for alternatives. Subject to the restrictions of the US government, Samsung and SK Hynix are temporarily unable to fill the market vacancy left by Micron, while Kaixia and Western Digital are busy merging and have relatively limited influence in the Chinese market. Therefore, China's memory chip companies are expected to replace Micron's position in the Chinese market.
At present, China has strong memory chip enterprises such as Yangtze River Storage and Changxin Storage. In particular, Changjiang Storage has successfully produced 232-layer memory chips in the field of NAND flash memory chips through 3D stacking technology, surpassing Samsung and SK hynix and becoming the only enterprise in the world that can produce more than 200-layer memory chips.
This shows that in terms of technology, the Yangtze River is stored and long
Xin Storage has gradually caught up with some of the world's leading companies, and the only thing that still limits their development is production capacity and market share. With Micron's exit from the Chinese market, Changjiang Storage and Changxin Storage are likely to fill the market gap left by Micron, which will have a huge impact for both companies.
In summary, Micron has been banned in the Chinese market due to security risks, and Western Digital not only lays off large-scale employees, but also plans to merge with Kaixia, which indicates that the memory chip market in the United States is facing drastic changes. With these changes, China's memory chip companies have the opportunity to rise and occupy a larger share of the international market.
Finally, we can see that the pattern of the global memory chip market is undergoing fundamental changes. It is hoped that Changjiang Storage and Changxin Storage can seize the market opportunity and continue to develop rapidly, which will not only benefit China's semiconductor industry, but also promote competition and innovation in the global memory chip field. In this turbulent moment, only by constantly adapting and developing can we be invincible in the global memory chip market.
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