WW SSD Shipments Fell 9% From 4Q13 to 1Q14 to 15 Million Units – Trendfocus

Here is an abstract of a report, NAND/SSD Information Service – May 9, 2014, CQ1 ‘14 Quarterly Update, by analysts from Trendfocus, Inc.

Seasonal Declines in PCs Cut Client, Total SSDs
NAND output declines on seasonally weaker client SSD and tablet demand – enterprise SSD shipments post growth

Total SSD shipments fell 8.8% in CQ1 ’14 to 15.332 million units, driven by softer PC demand and reduced interest in dual-storage caching solutions.

Average capacity jumped from 179GB in the prior quarter to 206GB in CQ1 ’14, signaling an accelerated shift away from cache demand.

SSD exabytes rose 5% due to the higher capacity mix – for the quarter SSD exabyte shipments reached 3.16, up from 3.01 in CQ4 ’13.

Client Primary Storage SSD average capacity dipped 5GB from the prior quarter to 211 GB.

Average price of 128GB and 256GB drive form factor SSDs declined measurably from the prior quarter due to lower overall demand for NAND.

Enterprise SATA SSDs, used mainly in servers, continued to dominate this space with 79% share in CQ1.

NAND output (gigabyte equivalent) was flat in CQ1 despite the seasonal softness in tablet, smartphone and PC sales.

TLC volumes continue to gain traction and accounted for 34.9% of all NAND in CQ1.

SanDisk/Toshiba and Samsung market share represented 69.7% of all NAND shipped in CQ1.

SSDs, phones (smartphone and feature phones), and tablets were the three largest consumers of NAND in CQ1 at 30.2%, 19.8%, and 8.4%, respectively.