Downstream suppliers plan to kick off a new round of purchasing NAND flash chips in large volumes to build up their inventories, as current supplies from Samsung Electronics and Toshiba can only meet 50-60% of customer demand, according to market sources. The move indicates that suppliers have agreed to price hikes demanded by chip vendors.
A recent report cited sources as saying that Apple has placed orders for 100 million 8Gb NAND flash chips mostly with Samsung. The Korea Times on April 13 also cited an industry source as reporting that Apple asked Samsung and Hynix Semiconductor to supply a combined 70 million NAND flash chips for its iPhone and iPod.
Latest quotes gathered by inSpectrum show that the average spot price of 8Gb multi-level cell (MLC) NAND flash chips has gone up 3.5% to US$3.73 today (April 16).
Article translated by Jessie Shen
