With personal computer and smartphone markets reaching their saturation point and the importance of contents growing every day, servers are likely to lead the growth of the overall memory chip market.
At present, the server DRAM market is dominated by a handful of Korean companies such as Samsung Electronics and SK Hynix whose market share is estimated at more than 80 percent in this segment.
According to market research firm IHS on August 4, the DRAM market is forecast to grow slightly from US$46.2 billion last year to $48.6 billion this year. In 2016, however, the market is likely to mark a negative growth, falling to $44.2 billion. Even after that, the growth of the market is expected to remain weak, hovering at around $44.1 billion in 2017, $46.3 billion in 2018 and $48.3 billion in 2019.
This stagnant growth is attributable mainly to the sluggish DRAM demand from the areas of personal computer and mobile which have thus far led the overall DRAM demand.
In contrast to the slowing growth of these areas, the server DRAM market is forecast to mark a strong average annual growth of 13.8 percent, rising from $7.0 billion in 2014 to $8 billion in 2015, $8.4 billion in 2016, $9.8 billion in 2017, $11.7 billion in 2018 and $13.4 billion in 2019.
