NAND pricing down up to 10 percent in second half of August

Although NAND flash, the critical component of solid-state drives (SSDs), continues to prove a popular alternative to traditional spinning-rust mechanical storage devices - and, in the case of highly-portable devices like smartphones and tablets, the only real choice - it isn't selling quite as well as its manufacturers had hoped. A slowdown in sales has hit prices hard, and although manufacturers have been restricting their output in an effort to decrease supply and increase pricing stockpiles are continuing to grow.

The result, market watcher TrendForce has claimed in its latest DRAMeXchange report on the memory market, is a slide that will wipe out recent price increases altogether. In the second half of August, the company claims, contract prices for NAND flash components have dropped by up to 10 per cent, and that will continue through to the end of the year as additional manufacturing plants come on-line ahead of what manufacturers are hoping will be a boost to demand.