The market of mobile RAM (DRAM) showed a decline due to the decline in sales of smartphones. Such data leads in the analytical company DRAMeXchange, which is a subdivision of the research agency TrendForce.

According to experts, in the first quarter of 2017, sales of DRAM-memory chips for mobile devices on a global scale decreased by 1.7% compared to the previous three months and amounted to 5.4 billion dollars.

Specialists of DRAMeXchange explain this regression by seasonal decrease in demand for smartphones. In quantitative terms, these devices in January-March 2017 were sold at 22.3% less than in the previous quarter.

It is noted that the fall of the mobile "RAM" market could be stronger, if not for the growth of contract prices for microchips. Due to this, manufacturers will be able to increase revenue, and it is the chips for gadgets that will bring vendors the most part of revenue from memory sales, according to DRAMeXchange.

The market of mobile DRAM-memory is actually divided among three manufacturers: Samsung Electronics, SK Hynix and Micron. Their shares in the first quarter of 2017 amounted to 58.4%, 23.9% and 15.3% respectively. Samsung's sales of chips fell by 6.3% from quarter to quarter, SK Hynix's sales declined 2.3%. At the same time, Micron showed a 22.3 percent rise, which analysts associate with rising prices and strong orders from large customers such as Apple and Huawei.

The study says that Samsung is actively moving to the release of memory chips on the 18-nm process, while cutting the power to produce chips at 20 nm. It is expected that already in the third quarter more than half of Samsung's chips will be produced on processes of 18 nm.

SK Hynix, in turn, increases the production of 21-mm solutions, which increases the supplier's share in the LPDDR4 and LPDDR4X product segments. It is expected that by the end of 2017 SK Hynix will start sending customers the first memory samples made at 18 nm.

As for Micron, the company is still betting on 25- and 20-nm products in the field of mobile RAM. At the same time, an American vendor seeks to increase production capacity and share a 20-nm memory, which is now at an important stage of development.