Looks Like SSD Prices Should Climb A Little

According to Digitimes, the demand of NAND used in SSD's is going to be greater than the supply. At least people are starting to wise up...

Sources at memory makers expect demand for high-capacity NAND flash memory to outstrip supply in 2012 due to strong demand for SSD and embedded storage applications. However, oversupply will remain in the low-capacity flash memory sector in 2012 as demand coming from the mature flash card and drive market has little room to grow, according to the sources.

As a result, prices for high-capacity NAND flash chips and low-capacity ones will be headed in opposite directions, the sources said.

Prices for 64Gb and 32Gb NAND chips will be pushed higher in 2012 as supply is expected to be slightly short of demand, the sources indicated. Demand will be spurred by the growing markets for SSDs and embedded multimedia card (eMMC) flash memory used in consumer technology products, the sources said.

Worldwide SSD shipments will likely top 40 million units in 2012, up robustly from about 12 million units in 2011, the sources estimated. The market will expand further to 120-150 million units when lower per GB costs enable the ratio of SSDs used in consumer PCs to climb, the sources noted.

The eMMC market is regarded as the other growth engine, the sources said. Growth in the market has been constrained by immature controller technologies in 2011. But with the issues solved, the eMMC business stands a chance of reaching a fresh peak in 2012, the sources pointed out.

In contrast, entry-level 3-bit per cell NAND chips will not see significant growth in 2012, the sources said. However, if many flash drives tend to transition to faster USB 3.0 interface, demand could outperform and support the chip prices, the sources indicated.