Apple creates worldwide NAND flash shortage; China Mobile deal
Flash memory supply prioritized for Apple
In a new report from DigiTimes, Taiwanese memory module makers said there have been a "serious shortage" of NAND flash chips, as companies provide more and more of their supply to Apple. Industry sources said memory providers will limit the supply of memory provided to companies other than the Cupertino, Calif., hardware maker.
"Samsung Electronics has informed Taiwan module makers that it will halve its NAND flash memory to them in September, and Micron Technology has also told some of its downstream customers that no NAND flash chips are available, claimed the sources," the report said. "Toshiba and Hynix Semiconductor are also giving priority to Apple, and are offering limited supply to the spot market, the sources added."
The average price for a 16GB chip was $4.48, up 7.2 percent in the first half of September. 32GB also rose 4.3 percent to $6.80.
Last week, Apple unveiled a new 64GB iPod touch for $399, doubling the capacity of its previous highest capacity 32GB model. In addition, this summer the 16GB and 32GB iPhone 3GS models were introduced.
As Apple has continued to double its available capacities on the iPhone and iPod touch every year, competitors have struggled to keep up. This week Microsoft will release its new Zune HD, available with flash memory capacities of 16GB and 32GB.
If true, the latest report from DigiTimes could suggest that competitors, like the Zune HD, have been unable to offer the capacity of the iPod touch because memory suppliers simply will not provide enough product to anyone other than Apple.
Report reaffirms Apple negotiations with China Mobile ongoing
China Mobile, the world's largest wireless provider, remains in negotiations with Apple to bring the iPhone to its network, a new report from The Wall Street Journal states.
The company's chairman said talks are ongoing, confirming previous reports that Apple is looking beyond its deal with China Unicom. Though Apple entered into a three-year deal with China Unicom last month, that agreement was non-exclusive, paving the way for the iPhone to potentially appear on other carriers.
Of China's estimated 700 million mobile subscribers, China Mobile is by far the largest, with more than 475 million customers. China Unicom has an estimated 141 million subscribers. Later this year it will offer a new model of the iPhone that does not have Wi-Fi. The carrier has plans to offer 3G access in 335 cities before 2010.
41 Comments
Wow, just a little over $2.00 difference between flash sizes like that? Yet in the final product, to get the larger storage capacity, the price difference may well be over $50. That's a lot of profit!! :/
Conspiracy Theory of the day:
Is Apple purposely buying as much NAND chips to drive up costs for other manufacturers, or to try to make it so it is not possible for others to make their NAND based products? I wouldn't put it past Apple to do this. Really shady in my opinion.
Definitely a conspiracy theory. There's no way Apple is sinking huge amounts of money in to inventory they have no intention of using. They're just building iPods, iPhones, Airs (and maybe tablets) like mad.
I'm sure Microsoft can find enough NAND memory for both of their Zune customers to upgrade.
Well I'm sure the purpose of buying so much and using it in Apple created popular devices was to drive down the price through creating a large market and therefore increased suppliers and competition, with the benefits of economies of scale.
Unfortunately what seemed to occur was innovation, because now San Disk has a SD (SDXC) card coming out with capacities of up to 2 TB with access speeds 2x faster than a 7200 RPM hard drive (speed according to my calculations).
NAND is looking rather obsolete, fat and expensive in my opinion for Apple's lust for the thinnest gadgets, and because it's soon to be obsolete, there is no reason to invest in it's future, therefore whomever makes it is in it's best interest to milk the cow for all it's worth.
Also because the new SDXC will be expensive at first as the market for it develops (and the deal wrangling etc) so that's not necessarily a cheap option either.
So what to do, what to do? Between a rock and a hard place...