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NAND Flash to grow to $16.8 billion, up 55 percent in 2006 |
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Feb 13, 2006 at 06:03 PM |
 The worldwide NAND flash market grew to $10.9 billion in
2005, up 64 percent from $6.6 billion in 2004, according to preliminary
figures from iSuppli. The market research firm expects the NAND market
to continue it's fast pace growth in 2006 with global sales rising to
$16.8 billion, up 55 percent from 2005.
The big winner in 2005 however, was Hynix Semiconductor. NAND flash
memory sales surged by 525 percent in 2005 to reach $1.4 billion in
revenues. The sales figures meant Hynix surpassed Renesas Technology
for the third spot in iSuppli's rankings and just behind second placed
Toshiba.
Samsung in 2005 continued to dominate the NAND flash market with a 52.9
percent share. However, its share declined from 58.7 percent in 2004.
Hynix gained momentum at the end of year, with more than 40 percent, or
$600 million, of its 2005 NAND revenue coming in the fourth quarter.
This put Hynix within $80 million of rival Toshiba, which posted
revenue of $680 million for the fourth quarter. In contrast, Toshiba's
NAND revenue was nearly twice as high as Hynix's in the third quarter.
"Hynix's stunning performance in the fourth quarter likely was due to
rising NAND sales to the MP3 player and removable flash storage card
markets," said Nam Hyung Kim, director and principal analyst with
iSuppli.
"Furthermore, Apple in 2005 engaged in negotiations with Hynix to
supply NAND flash for its wildly popular iPod nano music player. Hynix
was tasked to act as a second source to Apple's main NAND supplier,
Samsung Electronics Co. Ltd."
STMicroelectronics of Europe, which sold $89 million worth of
NAND flash in the fourth quarter, up 64.8 percent sequentially from $54
million in the third quarter, had the very strong growth figures,
though coming from a much smaller base. For the entire year,
STMicroelectronics attained NAND revenue of $215 million, up 760
percent from $25 million in 2004, according to iSuppli.
Micron Technology achieved the fastest growth of all NAND flash memory
suppliers in 2005, with its sales rising to $238 million for the year,
up 2375 percent from just $8 million in 2004.
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