A slowdown in SSD demand for consumer PCs will constrain NAND flash bit demand growth through 2025, with the year-on-year growth expected to stay below 30%, according to TrendForce.
"Client SSDs constituted a major driver of demand bit growth in the NAND flash market for the past two years as the effects of the COVID-19 pandemic were spurring procurement activities related to working and studying from home," said TrendForce. "However, the demand surge related to the pandemic is subsiding, and the recent headwinds in the global economy have caused a demand freeze in the wider consumer electronics market."
Client SSD demand is poised to experience "the most significant slowdown among all major device applications of NAND flash memory, TrendForce indicated.
With 512GB SSD prices dropping nearly to parity with 256GB SSDs six months ago and almost in line with HDDs of the same size, PC OEMs are encouraging their customers to use 512GB SSDs, TrendForce noted. The average client SSD NAND flash capacity has crossed the 500GB mark this year.
PC OEMs, however, have shown less interest in adopting SSDs with capacities of 1TB or higher, meaning NAND flash capacity for average client SSDs may be limited in the future, TrendForce said. The average client SSD NAND flash capacity growth is expected to decelerate to 9.6% in 2023 from 18.2% this year.
In the future, TrendForce predicts enterprise SSDs will dominate client SSDs in terms of driving NAND flash bit demand.
