No relief in memory prices soon, says IESA president

Consumers are likely to witness high memory prices, as no significant capacity addition is in the pipeline over the next 12-18 months, a top official of industry body IESA said on Wednesday.

India Electronics and Semiconductor Association President Ashok Chandak, on the sidelines of the Bharat Digital Infrastructure Association event, told reporters that setting up a memory plant will take time to get established.

“Memory makers cannot set up a plant in a few days. We are not seeing any significant capacity coming up in the next one and a half years. There will be a price rise due to high demand, and consumers will need to bear the burden,” Chandak said.

The price of devices, especially smartphones, has gone up by 20-30 per cent in the last six months.

The entire memory capacity of memory chip maker Micron in India has been booked due to high demand.

Chandak said the ongoing crisis in West Asia is impacting the entire economy, and there is some impact on electronics also.

“The critical raw materials, such as petrochemical plants, diesel, manganese, chemicals, and other gases, have seen an impact. It has an impact on the economy as well. Some electronics components have also been impacted,” Chandak said.

He said that India Semiconductor Mission 2.0 will bring some relief for the country and boost the semiconductor ecosystem, which will reduce dependency on imports. When asked about industry expectations on the incentives under ISM 2.0, he said that it should be more than the previous edition, which was $10 billion.