Handsets to become biggest consumer of flash memory in 2013, says IHS

Press release; Jessie Shen, DIGITIMES [Monday 4 February 2013]

In another sign of the pre-eminent position smartphones now hold in the global technology market, handsets as a whole are set to become the world's single largest consumer of flash memory in 2013, according to IHS iSuppli.

A vast array of products now make use of NAND flash memory. However, handsets will jump to the lead spot with a 24.6% share of global bit shipments in 2013, up from second place in 2012 with 23.3%, said IHS.

"With smartphones accounting for an ever-increasing portion of the global cellphone business, the mobile handset market is demanding more and more memory - particularly flash," said Ryan Chien, analyst for memory and storage at IHS. "This is causing the cellphone business to eclipse all other application markets for flash usage. Indeed, the shift in flash demand is reflective of a widespread transition in technology markets to focus more on mobile platforms like smartphones."

The device last year with the largest market share of flash memory consumption - flash storage cards - in 2013 will tumble to third place with a 19.7% share of flash consumption. Sitting between handsets and flash storage cards will be solid state drives (SSDs), ranked the No. 2 consumer this year with 20.6%, up two spots from 2012.

Other devices in 2013 with prominent market share in flash consumption include No. 4-ranked USB flash drives, tablets in fifth place, and MP3 players in sixth. Together, the top-6 devices will account for a whopping 93.2% market share of projected flash memory usage in 2013, IHS noted.

The remaining share will then be split among 10 products, including personal navigation devices, video camcorders, handheld game players and digital set-top boxes (STBs).

For ultrabooks, Intel announced new requirements for expensive touch screens, likely increasing cache SSD usage relative to standalone SSDs because of cost pressures related to the bill of materials (BOM), IHS indicated.

As the intersection of flash, storage and the cloud deepens in the consumer and enterprise environments, a bounce-back for the NAND industry is imminent in 2013 with revenues projected to climb to a record US$22 billion, IHS pointed out. Revenues contracted to US$20 billion in 2012 from US$21 billion in 2011.