2005 Flash Memory Market Approaches $20 Billion, Hynix Gains NAND Share, Web-Feet Research

Business Wire, Nov 7, 2005

MONTEREY, Calif. -- With less than two months to go, the 2005 Flash memory market is approaching $20 billion states Web-Feet Research (WFR). This year's Flash memory market for NOR and NAND is forecast to be $19.6 billion, nearly 13% higher than the $17.3 billion recorded last year. The NOR market having faced pricing difficulty for most of 2005, declined -17% to $8.3 billion. NAND revenues are expected to grow 53% to $11.3 billion this year.

As widely anticipated, Samsung will finish in first place with total Flash revenues of $6.2 billion and a 31.7% market share for 2005. On a quarterly basis however, Samsung has been steadily losing revenue share due to its discounted pricing for Apple. Samsung's share of NAND revenue was also down slightly and should finish just under 50%.

Bringing its 300mm NAND fab on-line, Toshiba moved into second place with 12.4% share of total Flash revenue. In terms of NAND revenue, Toshiba should capture 18.8%, while their fab partner, SanDisk adds another 8.9% share.

Intel, the largest NOR vendor, takes over third place with 11.8% of total Flash revenue, while Spansion drops to fourth with 10.4%.

Hynix, ranked tenth last year, has been steadily gaining market share and jumped to fifth place by capturing 7.7% of share of Flash and a surprising 13.4% of the NAND market. At $1.3 billion of total Flash, STMicroelectronics will finish in sixth place with a 6.4% share.

WFR customarily issues its Non-Volatile Memory Market Share report in March, but due to the dynamic growth in the Flash market decided to issue a preliminary report to its client base later this month.

About Web-Feet Research

Headquartered in Monterey, California, Web-Feet Research provides business consulting and market research services in the memory and storage markets, with emphasis on Flash memory components, Flash cards and small form factor HDD for mobile applications.