[Citrini's View: Recent Negative Rumors About NAND Are Overblown; SanDisk's Low-Priced LTAs Are a Strategic Choice, Not a Sign of Weak Demand; Maintains Bullish Outlook on Storage Sector] BlockBeats News, July 25 – Citrini analyst Jukan published an article addressing recent market rumors regarding bearish notes on NAND and negative news about QLC price negotiations. It is not surprising that SanDisk accepted prices lower than the initial quote when signing a long-term agreement (LTA) with Meta. SanDisk is one of the most proactive NAND manufacturers in pursuing LTAs, planning to allocate over 50% of its total shipments to such agreements. Based on this strategy, it is natural for them to accept LTA prices below the current quarterly contract prices. This should not lead to the conclusion that "SanDisk cannot seamlessly resell all orders to higher-bidding North American customers." Regarding rumors that Chinese module manufacturers were rejected when promoting eSSD to domestic CSPs, Jukan explained that Chinese CSPs have direct procurement channels with YMTC (Yangtze Memory Technologies) rather than a lack of demand. As for claims that hyperscale cloud providers are driving down QLC eSSD prices, resulting in some volumes being unsold, Jukan believes that new cloud providers have sufficient demand to absorb these volumes. Jukan concluded by stating that negative headlines tend to be amplified when storage stocks underperform, but the fundamentals have not shown any substantial deterioration. He reiterated a "bullish outlook on storage." Previously, Jukan had stated that DRAM contract prices have approximately 40% upside potential through the end of 2027, and HBM supply remains tight. This clarification on the NAND segment further solidifies his bullish stance on the entire storage sector. [Original Link]