Western Digital will reduce investment and production
The memory semiconductor market has been very sluggish recently. With weak demand and high inventory levels, Western Digital, as the world’s fourth largest NAND flash memory manufacturer, is determined to reduce the production of NAND flash memory in the near future, and will also reduce investment in facilities.
According to Business Korea, Western Digital recently announced on its Q4 2022 earnings call that the total investment in facilities in 2023 is $2.3 billion. This figure represents a decrease of 14.8% from the $2.7 billion stated in the third quarter 2022 earnings conference call held in October 2022. If compared with the $3.2 billion announced in August 2022, it is a decrease of 28.12%.
Image: Western Digital
In addition, Western Digital also decided to reduce the production of NAND flash memory, which was greatly reduced to 30% of the current level. This is the first time it has announced a reduction in production.
As of the third quarter of 2022, in the NAND flash memory market, Samsung has the largest market share at 31.6%, followed by Kioxia at 21.1%, followed by SK Hynix, Western Digital, and Micron at 19%, 12.4%, and 11.8% respectively. Most of these manufacturers have reduced the production of NAND flash memory. Except for Western Digital, SK Hynix, Micron and Kioxia have successively reduced investment and reduced production.
The only exception is Samsung. In its 2022 fourth-quarter earnings conference call held on the 31st of last month, it clearly pointed out that the scale of its investment this year was the same as last year. Since Samsung intends to increase the proportion of investment in research and development this year, this means that Samsung’s investment in production will decrease, and it is likely to choose to reduce production in the end.
