History (1996): SanDisk Leads Intel in Flash Cards

SanDisk furnished highlights from a new market research study from In-Stat (Scottsdale. AZ) which found that WW flash card revenues in 1995 reached $173.7 million, in other words a 59.5% gain over 1994 when the company registered sales of $108.9 million.

The report anticipates that rapid market growth will continue forecasting WW sales $252.9 million this year and $1.25 billion by the year 2000.

SanDisk finished first in survey with shipments of $55 million, giving the company a 32% market in 1995 as opposed to 28% in 1994. Second place went to Intel which recorded $29 million in sales or 17% of the market share in 1995 compared to 23% the previous year. Other competitors hit below the 6% mark.

The total market grew at rate of 60% while SanDisk sales increased at a rate of 83%, and Intel’s by 16%.

Unit sales of the solid-state storage cards, according to the In-Stat survey which was compiled by senior analyst Connie Batchelder, nearly doubled in 1995 with 1.1 million units. Flash card unit sales in 1994 were 582.000.

The analyst noted: “Several factors are driving flash card market growth. Prices are declining significantly and new types of applications and platform opportunities are opening up. Flash card manufacturers are also finding new sales in the consumer market, especially with digital cameras.”

Shipments of ATA-based flash cards (SanDisk. etc.) vs. linear flash cards (Intel, AMD, etc.) also expanded last year. In dollar shipments, ATA cards had a 36.9% share of the market in 1995 compared to 63.1 % for linear cards. In-Stat expects ATA card sales to grow to 44.6% of the market this year and, in the next 3 or 4 years, ATA dollar card sales will surpass linear card sales.

The survey included sales data from 26 flash card manufacturers.

This article is an abstract of news published on the former paper version of Computer Data Storage Newsletter on issue 100, published on May 1996.