Shipment of SSDs in Uptrend Despite Weak Ultrabook Sales

The shipments of SSDs have risen sharply this year despite weak ultrabook sales. This is according to IHS iSuppli who expects this trend to continue as these flash memory-based drives become increasingly common in non-budget notebooks and desktop PCs by the latter half of this decade.

"Intel Corp. has not matched its ambitious goals for ultrabooks with the marketing needed to propel the platforms as a desirable, affordable alternative to conventional notebooks and tablets," said Ryan Chien, analyst for memory and storage at IHS. "This has prompted IHS to lower its cache SSD shipment projection. However, pricing for SSDs has fallen well below the $1-per-gigabyte threshold, making their value proposition more attractive than ever. Because of this, SSDs are finding uses in other products, helping to compensate for the shortfall in ultrabooks."

iSuppli has projected SSD shipments to reach about 41.0 million units by the end of the year, generating revenues of approximately US$7.5 billion. Do note that this projected figure excludes hybrid cache solutions that employ flash memory. Manufacturers were originally expect to ship about 33 million units during the second half of 2012, with 13 million in the third quarter and 20 million in the fourth; however, iSuppli said that says the industry will fall short of these forecasts, with numbers lower by about 5 million at 28 million units during the second half of 2012, with an estimated 10.5 million units due to ship in the third quarter and another projected 17.5 million units will be shipped in the following quarter. For more information, please visit this link for the press release from IHS iSuppli.

(Source: IHS iSuppli)

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