Growings sales of mobile phones will fuel demand for both flash and mobile DRAM memory. Global handset shipments are prophesied to grow 10.5 percent compared to last year, from 1.45 billion phones in 2009 to 1.61 billion this year.
The smartphone segment will be behind the demand spike. Smartphone shipments are expected to rise from 170 million units last year to 220 million in 2010, a rate of 28.6 ppercent year over year.
The rise of memory-hungry smartphones will lead to strongly increasing demand for memory products. Mobile DRAM output rising by a stonking 71 percent to 1.87 billion 1GB DRAM chips.
Samsung and Hynix will battle each other over market share. Samsung's mobile DRAM output has climbed to 20% of its product mix, compared to 12% at Hynix. Prices are expected to stay stable. Google's new Nexus One handset, which was designed by Taiwanese handset maker HTC, has 512MB mobile DRAM and 512MB flash memory integrated.