Chinese-language text requires much more storage capacity than English, and therefore China’s mobile phone market could drive demand for flash memory. At the same time, fierce competition is forcing prices down.
Whereas mobile phones in Europe come equipped with 16Mbits of flash, in China they require 32 or 64 megabits. Most of the memory is used to store the operating system, images, text data and rings for incoming calls. In an English-language phone, rings and images usually take up the most memory. In a phone with Chinese-language capabilities, however, text data also requires a sizeable amount of memory.
IDC Japan observed that the quick growth of China’s mobile phone market in 2001 has prompted major memory manufacturers to rush in but also caused prices to fall quickly. According to Japanese semiconductor companies, the contract price for an MCP (multi-chip package) of 32Mbits of flash and 4Mbits of SRAM is about 1,100 yen, 50% lower than at the beginning of 2001. The same MCP sold in China is going for 20% less, and manufacturers are under considerable pressure to lower contract prices again in January.
Article translated by Noah Sauve and edited by Richard So
