In today's Samsung Electronics first-quarter earnings conference call, Samsung stated that the popularity of generative AI has had a significant impact on various categories within its storage business.
For NAND and solid-state drive businesses, the increased demand for generative AI has raised IT enterprises' need for servers, leading major server manufacturers to significantly increase their procurement of enterprise storage products, ultimately accelerating the growth of the solid-state drive market.
Samsung estimates that the AI trend will drive an 80% year-on-year increase in enterprise SSD sales this year. This trend is more pronounced in the more cost-effective QLC products, with sales of related products expected to triple in the second half of the year compared to the first half.
This wave of enterprise storage demand has also driven up prices of related products: as reported by pulsestacks earlier, Samsung has raised prices for enterprise SSDs by up to 25% this quarter.
In terms of DRAM memory business, Samsung indicated that overall bit shipments growth will be constrained this year.
Samsung's advanced DRAM production capacity is focused on the more profitable "AI memory" HBM, with HBM3E 8H / 12H products being mass-produced, which has relatively squeezed the allocation for general DRAM.
Samsung anticipates that the shortage of general DRAM supply resulting from increased HBM production capacity will drive up prices of related products, contributing to improved profitability.
