From Steve's Digicams site
World's Flash Memory Market to Hit US$11B in 2000, Nikkei Survey Says
"According to a survey by Nikkei Market Access, the world's flash memory market in 2000 will grow 2.6 times over the preceding year to US$11 billion.
Flash memory shipments for mobile phones are expected to grow both in units and in memory capacity. In the European mobile phone market, low-end 8Mb devices are currently popular, but 16Mb devices are replacing them gradually. In Japan, 64Mb- based mobile phones will be put on the market this year. Accordingly, flash memories will remain in short supply through this year, without any price decrease.
NAND-type (*2) flash are enjoying growing demand. They are mainly used for memory cards for digital still cameras. Shipments of digital cameras have been increasing at a pace of 200 percent a year. Demand for memory is also growing as the quest for higher pixels becomes strong. In addition, music players which need memory cards are building a new market.
Unlike NOR-type, NAND flash suppliers tend to lower the price to arouse demand. A 64MB card is currently priced at nearly 20,000 yen (about US$190), but the price will be reduced to less than half of it toward the end of next year.
The flash memory market is expanding rapidly, but there are concerns about the future of the market. Since NOR type is highly dependent on mobile phones, demand for NOR flash would fall when sales of mobile phones dwindled. In addition, most industrial sources believe that 128Mb is enough for the built-in capacity of a mobile phone and competition for bigger memory capacity will cease in the future.
Since the market demands that the NAND type be lower in price, sales in value will not grow though unit-based sales grow. Judging from the spread of mobile phones and the built-in capacity of a mobile phone, the expansion of the flash memory market will slow down in 2004."
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