Tablets and smartphones spur huge memory demand

The surge in demand for tablets and smartphones will mean a bumper year for memory manufacturers, analysts have predicted.

ISuppli reported that rising demand for portable computing will drive NAND memory sales 382 per cent higher next year, and demand will increase fourfold from that figure by 2014.

"The bump in NAND consumption among tablets is likely to come from devices such as Apple's iPad as well as devices powered by the rival Android expected to hit the market this year," said Dee Nguyen, analyst for memory and storage at iSuppli.

"Together, the iPad and Android tablets form one strand of the tablet experience offered by manufacturers centring on internet-based media consumption. For such tablets, internal storage capacity is less an issue because the devices are intended to provide entertainment, not a full PC computing experience."

Mobile DRAM prices, which had been expected to see a slump in 2012, will hold steady thanks to demand from the smartphone and tablet industries. This growth will not halt falling DRAM prices totally, but will ameliorate some of the worst effects of oversupply.

"In contrast with the weakening performance of the overall DRAM market, growth in mobile DRAM is surging, thanks to the ongoing proliferation of smartphones and increasing public appetite for tablets like Apple's iPad," said Mike Howard, principal analyst for DRAM and memory at iSuppli.

"As these mobile devices handle more data-intensive applications, demand is expected to escalate for mobile DRAM."