Selling prices of microSD cards slip by 20 p.c

TAIPEI: With downstream device-makers being disinclined to source directly from NAND flash chipmakers, the selling prices of microSD cards have dropped by 15 p.c-20 p.clower than the quotations of chip vendors.

According to sources in the industry, the supply of MicroSD from Samsung Electronics stays tight as the company attempts to maintain its quotations. A weakening of demand in the end-market has led to the lower selling prices of microSD.

Module-makers are hoping, according to sources, that chipmakers would lower their quotations to reduce the gap with selling prices.

The fall in the selling prices of microSD has been partly blamed on the recent entry SanDisk into the white-box market. SanDisk is supplying microSD cards to Taiwan’s NAND flash device-makers, who, the sources said, market them as their own.

According to DRAMeXchange, on November 11, 2009, the average prices for 1GB and 2GB microSD declined by 4.51 per cent and 4.86 per cent , respectively, in one day, to close at US $4.44 and US $4.86, respectively.

As for the contract prices for corresponding NAND flash chips in the first half of November 2009, the average prices of 8Gb and 16Gb multi-level cell (MLC) touched US $4.60 and US $5.28, respectively – with the average prices of 8Gb multi-level cell staying flat and those of the 16Gb multi-level cell going up 1per cent-2 per cent.