14 DAY TRIAL // Apple has become a memory glutton and its increasing needs have left other companies unable to secure sufficient stock. It used to be all the iPods that needed so much memory, now the iPhone needs it as well and there are also rumors of portables coming out of Apple with NAND memory for faster boot times and lower power consumption.
Apple's increased orders for NAND flash memory are leaving other Hynix Semiconductors and Samsung Electronics customers with insufficient stock. Both companies have been reserving more and more of their stock for Apple, starting in July and this has resulted in a supply strain to their other customers. Both companies informed the customers as far back as June that this month's supply would be strained. While the first-tier memory module houses do manage to land more stock from the chipmakers than second-tier players, some of the second-tier players may even be seeing no availability of stock.
Apple has long been a big buyer of memory and their flash based iPods have been selling very well for years. However, the iPhone also needs to be taken into account now and Apple could also be preparing for the release of a new generation of iPods, with even more memory than the previous ones and to top it all off, Apple could very well be pre-stocking NAND flash chips in order to meet the seasonal upturn. That's a lot of memory and it looks like the suppliers are having a hard time keeping up with Apple's needs.
Things being what they are and considering that Apple intends to also launch the iPhone in Europe later this year, this is likely not to be the last such shortage we are going to see. And after that, the iPhone will be launched in Japan? Apple is going to need a lot of those chips.