Sources talking to DigiTimes say NAND flash prices are now stabilising after a continuous fall over the last six months. After dropping approximately four per cent in June the prices “are expected to become steady in July”. This will have an effect on the prices of SSDs and other memory/storage containing products we gadget freaks like to buy.
The levelling out of the pricing/time curve is attributed to two factors by the DigiTimes reporter. It’s the classic economic pincer movement – “makers of NAND flash have begun lowering output to reduce global supply and demand is expected to increase in the second half of 2012”. It’s usually not in a producer’s best interest to run a factory and under-produce so the makers will probably up production slowly to meet the forecasted increased demand and keep the prices more stable from now on. With smartphone, tablet, USB3 pen drives and Ultrabook sales expected to grow during the rest of 2012 there will be plenty of demand for NAND.
Buy an SSD now?
For computer upgraders waiting for the SSD price fall to level out before stumping up the cash we may be near the best time to buy. No one likes to buy something to see the price plummet in the following weeks, though computer hardware buyers are accustomed to constant tech price drops, the price dive and affordability of SSDs has surprised many.
Wishful thinking
However the manufacturers of NAND flash may just be guilty of wishful thinking. If they really had such control on demand as to halt the NAND flash price nosedive and make more money they would have made that move months ago. In a report from April many of the same demand/supply issues were chewed over.
Also we have to ask how long contract price changes take to filter down to end users. The current prices of NAND based products may be due to NAND flash contract prices a couple of months ago, due to manufacturing time. Tools like CamelCamelCamel can help you decide if the time is right to buy an item. Just like buying stocks or trading in currency you can never be 100 per cent sure you have bought at the right time until you have some hindsight.
