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Technology Stocks : WDC/Sandisk Corporation -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: Steve 667 who wrote (24462)	1/4/2004 12:48:17 PM
From: Howard R. Hansen	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 60323

So the question is, what is the market share of Flash Memory Cards (final product) do each of these 3 companies have at this time (not 2005)? I do not know the answer to your question or of any source where you could get an answer. But here is some information that clarifies previous data posted on this thread about market share. techweb NAND Flash Gaining On NOR December 29, 2003 (11:26 a.m. EST) TechWeb News "Citing an “overwhelming demand” for products using NAND flash, iSuppi Corp. said it expects the entire flash market to grow by 40 percent in 2003. The market research firm said the NOR flash segment is still the largest slice of the flash business, but it predicts NAND flash revenue will hit the $11.5 billion mark in 2006 and pass NOR for the first time. “Within the flash market,” iSuppi said in a statement, “the fastest-growing part type is NAND, with sales set to rise to $3.8 billion in 2003, up 72.5 percent from $2.2 billion in 2002.” Driving the NAND sales, the firm noted, are products like USB drives, digital cameras, mobile handsets, memory cards, set top boxes, DVD players and electronic games. The entire flash market, encompassing both NAND and NOR technologies, is expected to pass the $11 billion mark in 2003. The demand pressure enabled NAND suppliers to temporarily reverse the sharp drop in memory prices, enabling suppliers to raise prices by 9.2 percent in the third quarter. “Rising NAND sales also... served to reshape the competitive landscape of the flash business,” iSuppi said. “NAND flash supplier Samsung Electronics became the number-one flash supplier in the third quarter, with a total market share of 20 percent.” Joining Samsung at the top was another NAND supplier, Toshiba Corp., which ranked second with 17.3 percent share of the market. Intel and Spansion, both NOR suppliers, fell behind the two pacesetters for the first time."

To: Steve 667 who wrote (24462)	1/4/2004 2:32:06 PM
From: Art Bechhoefer	Read Replies (2) \| Respond to of 60323

Steve, a possible explanation for the market share issue may come from the fact that Toshiba owns the factory, but Toshiba and SanDisk together operate it. So the industry may be attributing a 40 percent market share to Toshiba, when it might be more precise to give Toshiba and SanDisk each a 20 percent share, as the two partners share the output of the Yokaichi factory on a 50-50 basis. Now to make things more complicated, how does one account for the products from Tower Semiconductor, used for SNDK controllers? SanDisk owns shares of TSEM. Art

To: Steve 667 who wrote (24462)	1/9/2004 9:05:01 PM
From: Craig Freeman	Read Replies (2) \| Respond to of 60323

Steve 667, clarifying Howard's post -- per the 11/03 SNDK 10-Q -- SNDK buys silicon from several sources. "Under our wafer supply agreements with FlashVision, Renesas Technology Corp., or Renesas, Samsung, Toshiba, Tower Semiconductor Ltd., or Tower, and United Microelectronics, Inc., or UMC, we are obligated to provide a six-month rolling forecast of anticipated purchase orders." Per the same source, SNDK stated that it derives ~2/3rds of its sales at retail. Howard was quite correct when we stated that SNDK is not generally included in "manufacturer" statistics. While SNDK claims to be the "world's largest provider of ...", SNDK's total sales are but a small fraction of Samsung's flash memory sales ... and yet a smaller fraction of worldwide flash memory sales. Putting all this into perspective takes a lot of time and a calculator. But all the facts are there for the asking. Craig