"Massive Evidence" of DRAM Price Fixing Found in Chinese Investigation

[mr moose]

1 minute ago, Sakkura said:

 Also I doubt that's really the case as the Chinese market would tend to be more price-sensitive and also more likely to just expand their own DRAM production.

They are expanding their own production, they have several new factories either being built or proposed.  Funnily enough, Micron (whom they have evidence over) is taking one of them to court for IP theft.   As I said, it's messy and there is a lot more to it than just evidence they haven't released.

 

1 minute ago, Sakkura said:

 

Does happen in the EU.

Where? The biggest one was Google who got fined what? 1/2 of one years profit which they'll likely make back in new license fees as a result (assuming they don't find a way out of paying most of it anyway).  That's not a fine that would cause them any harm, they could easily weather it and keep going making more money from the aftermath. .

 

 

 

[Doobeedoo]

10 minutes ago, Sakkura said:

Could take a long time. The RAM prices at the bottom were probably not financially sustainable, at least with the production costs at the time. Production cost per GB goes down over time, but that trend's slowing down as we're hitting the end of Moore's law.

Yeah, cause of Moore's Law things do slow down, but still. How current pricing is for it, it's way much, definitely should improve by a lot really.

[Cereal5]

11 hours ago, Sakkura said:

Only very gradually

An average of $60 or so in the past 8-10 months is pretty good IMO. And again, they haven’t released any evidence, or how they came to that evidence

[Syntaxvgm]

22 hours ago, Cereal5 said:

RAM prices have still been coming down though...

I mean they haven't even reach the close to 55-60$ for 16GB of DDR4 you could get in 2016 but sure. 

The more important part was that at peak, the price more than tripled. 

[asus killer]

This will most likely end with a secret deal for China to develop their own companies in the field, mark my words. China could care less about consumers.

[DavidKalinowski]

I figured the proof of price fixing was that the retail price for almost every single RAM company at a given capacity was within 1-2 $ of each other. If there was competition there would be some kind of give and take going on. ( kind of like how I got a 4k HDR tv for 250$ last weekend. I know its not as good as a 4k QLED LG or whatever but that is a hill my wife would not give, and I wont die on. ) I'd like to be able to find a 45-55 $ kit of 16GB DDR4 ram. I mean for real..

[Canada EH]

On 11/29/2018 at 2:21 AM, Deus Voltage said:

the Chinese government hasn't released the evidence

That makes sense. Nothing will become of it!

Maybe a show will be put on, and the token scapegoat will be sentenced, moved to the The Chinese Communist Party's (CCP) Prison, setup in luxury then released when it all blows over.

[Drak3]

14 minutes ago, DavidKalinowski said:

I figured the proof of price fixing was that the retail price for almost every single RAM company at a given capacity was within 1-2 $ of each other.

That's not proof of anything. Manufacturers have little say in retail price.

 

[DavidKalinowski]

2 minutes ago, Drak3 said:

That's not proof of anything. Manufacturers have little say in retail price.

 

I still think it has some correlation. but I do concede the fact that you are technically correct. (and that is the best kind of correct.)

[Sakkura]

The manufacturers have no control of the retail pricing. They do sell into the spot market, but DRAM is highly commoditized, so you would expect prices to be very close together anyway.

 

The question is whether they colluded to restrict supply. That would automatically push prices up, and is a much more realistic way to do it.

[Guest]

On 11/29/2018 at 10:30 PM, huilun02 said:

Why not release the evidence? If its really incriminating and affects global supply, why go against said companies alone?

Perhaps in a few days we will find out as the ceos go into “Voluntary Rehabilitaition” to fix their sins.