Tablet Devices to Boost NAND Flash Shipments

Driven by the massive success of Apple Inc.’s iPad and the arrival of a range of competing devices, the use of NAND flash memory in tablets will triple from 2010 to 2011, according to the market research firm iSuppli Corp.

Shipments of NAND flash for tablet devices are projected to reach 1.7 billion gigabytes (GB) next year, up a phenomenal 296.1 percent from 428 million GB in 2010. The shipments will continue to climb steadily over the next few years, hitting 8.8 billion GB by 2014.

“Tablets have stolen some cachet from netbooks,” said Michael Yang, senior analyst for memory and storage at iSuppli. “And while the tablet segment suffers from some of the same weaknesses as netbooks, devices like the iPad have wowed consumers with their responsiveness and media interaction—due in part to the use of NAND flash for data storage, instead of a traditional hard disk drive.”

And more tablets are expected to arrive as the holiday season looms ahead, iSuppli projects. The new devices, to be based on the Android or Chrome operating system from Google Inc., could enable affordability because of increased product selection and apps innovation.

The surge in tablet shipments means that the amount of NAND required will quickly become sizable, memory pricing and forecasts from iSuppli indicate. And as more consumers switch from netbooks to tablets, NAND demand is expected to keep rising.

With the iPad leading the way, tablets will facilitate a new usage model that incorporates newer ways of experiencing media and the Internet, spurring rising NAND usage in each tablet. Average density of NAND flash for tablets will reach 28GB in 2010. By 2014, average NAND flash memory density for the devices will reach 65GB.

iSuppli