Hacker News Reader

Comment by reacharavindh | Hacker News Reader

I think you misunderstood my concern. I'm not talking about Intel adjusting its production to meet its demand. I'm talking about a collection of competetitors getting together and saying that we should limit supply so that the prices stay where they can make a good profit. How could that be healthy competition?

If all cement manufacturers suddenly got together and said they'll keep their prices at 40% more than others what happens to the construction industry and the consumers looking to build houses?

View on HN

The "getting together" is entirely your own supposition. The NAND manufacturers have not made any joint announcements or otherwise admitted to any joint action. They have responded similarly to market conditions that affect all of them equally, which is to be expected whether or not they are coordinating. These announcements were completely predictable; we knew last summer that something like this would have to happen this year unless several companies experienced serious yield issues with their 96-layer 3D NAND.

But they won’t be leaving the market, right? Therefore, they expect to make some profit at the expected higher price, and would stand to gain the most if all others cut production, except for them.

This is a classic prisoners’ dilemma, where everyone should defect. If they don’t, it must be due to coordination, either ex- or implicitly. And because anti-trust is civil law, it criminal, the standard of poof is “preponderance of evidence”, i. e. >50%.

If none or only one manufacturer cut production/restricted expansion, then somebody would be leaving the market. That's how the DRAM market ended up collapsing down to just three players: When margins are too low, the smaller players can no longer afford the investment required to keep pace with technology improvements. A short-term desperate play for market share in conditions where you can't turn a serious profit just means you only get to play the game for one more round unless other business units will cover your loss.

This is not an efficient market. Large changes in supply have lead times on the order of years, and demand cannot be accurately predicted that far out. Months-long oversupply and shortage conditions are unavoidable. The costs of entry get significantly higher with each generation. A two generation old NAND fab cannot be operated profitably even after all the construction and R&D costs have been recouped.

>The "getting together" is entirely your own supposition.

A not unreasonable one considering two of the three (Hynix and Micron) are convicted price fixers.

Reply on news.ycombinator.com