2011 strong tablet momentum will help to boom the embedded NAND Flash demand

TAIWAN: According to DRAMeXchange, the research department of Trendforce, facing the strong challenge from iPad, most PC and mobile vendors are accelerating their tablet launch in 2H10.

In order to compete with iPad, non-iPad tablet is designed with outperformed hardware spectrum such as more powerful processor performance, larger storage space and open hardware/software competitiveness (USB and Adobe Flash support). Samsung launched the “Galaxy Tab” leveraged with group resource and closed relationship with telecom carriers.

RIM also launch tablet-“Playbook” to aim at their original Blackberry commercial users and it is expected to be launched in 2Q11. Meanwhile, Acer announced to launch new series of tablet in New York at end of November and products will be in the market at March and April next year.Source: DRAMeXchange.

With the better management and control on Android system and customized application, we expect major tablet launch timelines will be scheduled at end of 1Q11 and early 2Q11.

Meanwhile, other emerging tablets brand also raise up from China market. Leverage with the accumulated experience in handset and delicate price sensitivity, the new emerging tablet are price-competitive and mainly are equipped with 7”inch display and Android system.

Even some tablet such as the 10.1” ePad by Zenithink tabbed the Christmas gift list in Amazon.com. the circumstance indicate that new emerging brand tablet PC has certain opportunities when most major-branded tablet PC is still in development process and thus create more diversified outlook for the overall tablet industry.Source: DRAMeXchange.

According to DRAMeXchange, 2010 worldwide tablet PC is forecasted to be 15 million units while 2011 overall tablet PC will strongly be scaled at 50 million units with the maturity of Android system and better acceptance.

Since over 80 percent tablet PC will implanted embedded NAND Flash solution such as eMMC and on-board Flash storage as 16GB/32GB storage, the strong shipment growth will help to stimulate the NAND Flash consumption.

DRAMeXchange expect Tablet NAND Flash consumption will be raised up to over 10 percent in 2011 from 5 percent in 2010. That is, tablet PC does really benefit for the NAND Flash industry.Source: DRAMeXchange.