Kingston to cut memory card prices?

Pressured by an intensified inventory loss, Kingston is said to be prepared for a price cut for its memory cards. Sources at the company indicated that they were prompted to initiate the price cut amid a weakening price trend, as well as rival SanDisk's previous claims for a more aggressive pricing strategy during the company's investor conference. But the sources did not reveal a concrete time frame nor a range for the discounts.

Some industry players explained the speculated price cut to a batch of inventory that Kingston procured from Samsung Electronics early in 2008. Kingston is still digesting the batch of more than 80 million 8Gb-equivalent NAND flash (both in chip and finished card form) from Samsung, the sources indicated. Given that a more conservative outlook for the market is projected and that spot prices of NAND flash keeps heading south, Kingston thus decided to cut prices, the sources explained.