History (1998): SSDs and Flash Memories Market to Reach 1998 $458 Million in 1998

Solid state storage, including SSD and flash memory, will show record growth in 1998, both in terms of unit shipments and revenues, according to the 1998 Solid State Disk and Flash Memory Market and Technology Report (150 pages, $875) from Peripheral Research

Total unit demand is estimated at approximately 6.7 million drives in 1998, up from 3.2 million in 1997.

As for revenues, 1998 sales will total $458 million, up from $284 million in 1997.

Based on the current trends, the solid state memory markets may be entering a period of extremely high growth. This is due to aggressive price reductions throughout the industry that have been observed over the past couple years.

Solid state disk pricing has declined from an average price of $30 per megabyte in 1997 to around $15 per megabyte in 1998. Pricing should continue to decline at this same rate for the foreseeable future, thereby greatly expanding the potential market for these devices.

Similarly, flash memory has declined in average price from $24 per megabyte in 1997 to $16 per megabyte in 1998.

All solid state memory pricing should be less than $5 per megabyte by the year 2000.

Quantum, Imperial and Disk Emulation Systems together share the WW market share lead in SSD.

SanDisk is the flash memory leader with 44% of the total flash memory market.

Companies supplying this market include: AMD, Atto Technologies, BGI, Bit Microsystems, Disk Emulation Systems, Fujitsu, Hitachi, Hyundai, IBM, Imperial, Intel, Matsushita, Mitsubishi, M-Systems, Quantum, SanDisk, Seek Systems, Toshiba and Zitel.

This article is an abstract of news published on issue 122 on March 1998 from the former paper version of Computer Data Storage Newsletter.