The memory chip industry has suffered one of the largest quarterly drops on record, as the price of both DRAM and NAND plummets along with demand.

The average price for Dynamic Random Access Memory, the high-speed, short-term memory used in smartphones and PCs, fell by 34.4 per cent during the fourth quarter of 2022, and 31.4 per cent in the September quarter.

Storage memory fell by 27.7 per cent during the December quarter, and 32 per cent in the previous quarter.

The two periods rank among the worst falls recorded in the sector since 2006, and are the steepest since the fourth quarter of 2008, which saw falls of 35.2 per cent for DRAM and 32.7 per cent for NAND.

Samsung, the world’s largest memory chip makers, saw its semiconductor segment profits fall 97 per cent during the quarter, amid high inventories.

Despite this, the company announced it will continue to spend on memory chips, with plans to match last year’s A$56.4 billion investment into memory chips.

Rivals Hynix, Western Digital, and Micron have all scaled back production due to the glut.