Five predictions for the new year: SanDisk

BANGALORE, INDIA: Manisha Sood, country manager & director, India & SAARC, SanDisk Corporation lists out her top trends for the new year.

1. Consumers are taking more pictures, listening to more music, recording and watching more videos and saving more personal memories. Hence the need to store this data in a secure way is on everyone's wish list. Flash memory is a driving force behind this trend because it offers fast, convenient, high-capacity, portable digital storage. The explosion of digital content is driving the need for more memory.

2. India is a growing market and the needs of the consumers here in terms of storage requirements are continuously on the rise. With the growing amount of digital data and increased need for mobility in our daily lives, the demand for portable storage devices is ever-increasing and will soar further in 2013. 

3. Flash memory market is on a roll, there is huge requirement in the domestic consumption. We see mobile, tablets and SSDs as the next big opportunity. A lot of today's gadgets are hi-tech and memory-intensive, which fuels growth. India is the fastest growing market for mobile phones in the world right now.

4. Today, USB flashdrives have become ubiquitous. These are increasingly being used for other than computing. USBs are being used outside the realm of PCs, be it in cars, computers, living room plasma TVs, car audios etc. Another emerging application is adoption of USBs by school children for projects, assignments etc. which is leading to expansion and penetration to newer markets.

5. Going forward, mobile computing will continue to play a critical role in the consumer electronics landscape. Smartphones, tablets and ultra-thin notebooks allow consumers to create, share and enjoy digital content anytime, anywhere, and flash memory is a key enabler of these thin yet powerful devices. With a robust growth in these devices, the demand for our products is also expected to witness growth. There is an upswing in the use of storage peripheral devices like flash drives, flash memory cards and sticks, external hard disks, MP3/MP4 players and digital cameras.

The Solid State Drive market, though in its niche stage has shown promise. It is growing steadily and is expected to catch up with the market pace soon. Global SSD shipments are set to reach nearly 160 million units in 2015, up from 22 million units today.