China’s economic regulator plans to investigate price increases of DRAM and NAND memory in the last year. The regulator suspects some companies from price fixing, which might have gone as far as a coordinated action to push the price of DRAM and NAND memory as high as possible.
The regulator, the National Development and Reform Commission's Pricing Supervision Department (NDRC) was alerted to the situation after it noticed a sharp increase of the chips over the last 18 months.
"We have noticed the price surge and will pay more attention to future problems that may be caused by ‘price fixing’ in the sector," a Chinese official told Reuters. The regulator could penalize Chinese memory makers if they are found to participate in price fixing.
Prices of DRAM saw an increase of 50% the last couple of months, while NAND chips became 30% more expensive, according to market researcher TrendForce.
