Taiwan’s media reported that Jibang Technology released a recent report that global flash chip sales will reach US$21.5 billion next year, up 16% year-on-year, but its average price will drop 35% year-on-year. Jibang Technology stated that the launch of the new smartphones and tablets and the purchase during the Spring Festival will ease the impact of seasonal sales factors in the flash market in the first quarter of next year. By the second quarter, the supply and demand of the flash memory market will be more balanced, and the price will not drop too much.
Tablets are seen as the driving force behind the demand for NAND flash memory in addition to smart phones. Jibang Technology predicts that global shipments of tablet computers will increase from 15 million this year to 50 million next year.
As flash memory chip makers are moving toward 30nm-class, 20nm-class production processes, the bit-rate growth rate of flash memory chips is expected to reach 78.3% next year.