SSD demand disappoints thus far in 2012

Josephine Lien, Taipei; Jessie Shen, DIGITIMES [Tuesday 18 September 2012]

Demand for both integrated solid-state drives (SSD) and standalone ones has been a disappointment thus far in the second half of 2012, according to industry observers. Neither ultrabook sales nor seasonal factors have played a catalyst for the market.

Among all current ultrabooks available on the market, many use low-capacity SSDs as a separate component alongside a hard drive (HDD) - the present mainstream ultrabook storage solution. However, cache SSDs aimed at keeping costs down have failed to boost the ultrabook market, the observers indicated.

Ultrabook sales have been constrained due mainly to pricing, the observers said, adding that a number of PC OEMs already lowered their shipment goals for 2012.

As for standalone SSDs, retail sales of drives based on the latest SATA 6Gb/s interface have been disappointing in the second half of 2012 despite it being the traditional peak season, the observers noted.

However, demand for integrated SSDs is set to boom in 2013 when more ultrabooks are allowed to employ dedicated SSDs instead of the HDD with cache SSD form of storage, the observers believe. Major chip supplier will transition to 19nm and below processes for the manufacture of MLC-type NAND flash, enabling chip prices to fall. As a result, cheaper SSDs will allow more affordable ultrabooks to be available on the market and accelerate ultrabook adoption among users, the observers pointed out.

In contrast, SSD developers' efforts to push sales of SATA3 devices have been negatively affected by sluggish retail demand, the observers said. The firms previously rolled out their SATA3 products targeting across all entry-level, enterprise and server applications, but end-market demand has been slow.

SSD demand has been weak
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