Apple's iPhone Causes Worldwide Memory Chip Shortage Posted by: Arik Hesseldahl on February 17, 2010
Among the list of things for which Apple's ever popular iPhone is responsible, you can now add "causing a worldwide shortage of memory chips." That's the word from market research firm iSuppli today in a report saying that supplies of so-called NAND-type flash memory, which is used to store music, video and apps on the iPhone, will reach a point of critical shortage during 2010, as Apple is expected to boost the iPhone's capacity to 64 gigabytes, prompting rivals like Nokia, Google, and HTC to boost the memory on their own phones to keep up. As it happens, as iSuppli analyst Michael Yang tells me, the iPhone consumes more NAND flash memory than any other product, about 30% of the world's supply, he says. He expects Apple to ship 33 million iPhones during calendar 2010 - and calls that a "conservative forecast" - with an average memory density of 35 gigabytes per unit. Meanwhile, Apple will also be launching the iPad this summer as well, further adding to its flash demands. I also have to wonder if we'll see a 128 GB iPod touch this year. ... http://www.businessweek.com/technology/ByteOfTheApple/blog/archives/2010/02/apples_iphone_c.html *********************************** * POST TO MEDIANEWS@ETSKYWARN.NET * *********************************** Medianews mailing list Medianews@etskywarn.net http://lists.etskywarn.net/mailman/listinfo/medianews
