Increasing demand from Apple for large supplies of NAND memory has left other players in the lurch with severe shortages in store.
So says Taiwanese wire Digitimes, claiming that major manufacturers including Samsung, Micron, Toshiba and Hynix are favoring Apple over other module makers because of a perceived pent up demand.
Part of the problem is due to Apple readying the launch of its popular iPhone in mainland China during this quarter, and another part of the problem is Apple’s iPod Touch media player that has capacities of up to 64GB.
The shortage has led to the price of NAND memory rising on the spot market, says the report.
* Meanwhile, the same wire reports that a government sponsored bail out of local DRAM manufacturers may well be in peril because of a cabinet re-shuffle. One minister to go, Chii-Ming Yin, was the prime force behind the Taiwan Memory Company (TMC).