Tag: production cuts

A Retrospect of Toshiba’s NAND Production Cut

Did Toshiba's 3Q12 Capacity Reduction Really Happen?There are some who still believe that Toshiba made good on its announcement to cut NAND flash production by 30%.  Let’s take a close look to see if that really happened.

Readers may recall that Toshiba stated last July that it would immediately cut NAND flash production by 30%.  At the time NAND was selling below cost for spot prices as low as 31 cents/GB.

The Memory Guy questioned both the wisdom of the move and its authenticity in a blog post at that time, since this level of cut would reduce Toshiba’s market share while increasing its Continue reading “A Retrospect of Toshiba’s NAND Production Cut”

Toshiba to Cut NAND Production by 30%

Toshiba's Fab 5 in YokkaichiIn a surprise announcement Toshiba has said that it will immediately cut NAND flash production by approximately 30%.  The company explains that this is being done “to reduce inventory in the market and improve the overall balance between supply and demand.”  Toshiba’s release implies that this move is expected to improve prices, which have dropped as low as $0.31/GB recently.

By common measures of market share, which typically leave out SanDisk (for reasons too complex to discuss here) Toshiba holds a share of roughly 30% of the NAND flash market.  By cutting its output by 30% Toshiba would be reducing overall NAND supply by 10%.  If we were to include SanDisk, then that percentage would decrease to about 7.5%.  Either one of these is significantly more than Continue reading “Toshiba to Cut NAND Production by 30%”