NAND Flash Memory Prices Drop with Lower Demand from Apple

NAND flash memory prices are under some downward price pressure due to Appleis historic demand levels not rebounding, according to DigiTimes on Tuesday.

DigiTimes attributed the situation to industry sources who cited the lower demand from Apple and Toshibais increased supplies. That has driven the prices of a 16 Gb product (2 GB) to barely above US$5.00.

The recent introduction of sub-notebooks from Apple and Lenovo with solid state drives (SSD) using NAND flash isnit expected to drive demand up soon because those drives are still much more expensive per gigabyte than conventional hard disks.

The downward pressure is primarily affecting the larger capacity chips, and thatis expected to continue for the rest of 1Q, 2008.

This is good news in some respects for customers, and it may hasten the arrival of more affordable iPods, iPhones and SSDs. However, the slight lessening of demand from Apple for iPod storage has also been noted as a source of concern by analysts.