Gartner: Earthquake May Enhanced Spot Price of Flash Chip

Published:2011/3/14 3:43:00 Author:Amy From:SeekIC

According to Andrew Norwood who is an analyst of a market research firm Garnter, the spot price of flash chip for smart phone and tablet PC maybe increase by the influence of earthquake in Japan.

A massive 8.9-magnitude earthquake struck Japan triggering a tsunami in 11 March. After the quake, Toshiba shut down the microcontroller plant in Iwate without disclosing the loss. According to Toshiba, the primary NAND manufacturing facilities are located in Yokkaichi where is next to Tokyo. The facilities did not have much damage. Toshiba is the second largest manufacturer for NADA flash chip and occupies one third share of global market ranked next to Samsung.

Quake and tsunami will boost the spot price of flash chip but won’t have long-term impact on market, said Norwood. He also added that spot market will have shocked reaction for any uncertainty. In the past, the price of DRAM and NADA flash chip would jump after such incidents occurred; but this time, the earthquake was happened in Friday afternoon and most spot markets are located in Asia, so they have 48 hours to make a more reasonable response.

A spokesman of Toshiba said that transportation and logistics will surely be impacted but the loss has not yet learnt.

Sony has shut down six plants, among them, two located in Fukushima Prefecture and four in Miyagi Prefecture. One of them is in charge of producing LD which used for DVD, blue light, and CD player.

An analyst of America investment bank Mark Harding said that despite the damage can not be estimated, the negative effect on Sony is existed for real; the influence may be only a little at very beginning, but the longer the duration, the greater the negative impact. The related integrated circuit is 45160.

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