iSuppli: NAND Flash manufacturing to bulk up in 2010, iPhone the cause

According to the research group iSuppli, the iPhone will continue to be an important driver for sales of NAND Flash memory in 2010, possibly even leading to situations where there is a shortage of stock.

The production capabilities of NAND Flash memory will be tested due to the success of the Apple iPhone according to iSuppli, due to each iPhone produced in 2010 carrying an average of 32.5 GB of Flash memory.

With sales forecasts of 33 million iPhones for this year, up 31.5% when compared to the 21 million shipped devices in 2009, the market may witness periods where stock is temporarily unavailable during the year.


NAND Flash manufacturers have plenty to do
It is estimated that over 2010, 732 million mobiles containing onboard Flash memory components will be shipped, an increase of 13.8% when compared to 2009. To this we can add a large number of Smartphone’s which have characteristics resembling the iPhone (even if most of them also have a memory card slot), as well as new products (ebook readers, tablets...) which also require these components (even if their capacity is often vastly inferior), leading to a situation where there is strong demand for onboard Flash components.

E-paper readers generally don’t require more than 2 MB of onboard memory (they generally come with memory card slots) and this tendency shouldn’t vary over the coming years, iSuppli predicts.

Tablet PC’s require a lot more internal memory (generally between 32 and 64 GB) but their success isn’t yet guaranteed, as we have to wait and see how well manufacturers sales forecasts pan out, with the Apple iPad being a good indicator. In any event, it is almost assured that the eventual success of Apple’s latest release will be minutely dissected and analysed.