Despite facing five consecutive quarters of decline and a slowdown in consumption in smartphones and tablets, the global market for NAND flash memory pulled off a surprise growth spurt during the last three months of 2012 promping sales to reach a record high, according to IHS iSuppli.

NAND industry revenues came to US$5.6 billion in the fourth quarter of 2012, up 17% from US$4.8 billion in the third quarter, said IHS. Samsung Electronics, with more than a third of total revenues, led the field. NAND flash revenues for the entire year of 2012 amounted to US$20.2 billion, IHS indicated.

"The NAND flash market's expansion in the fourth quarter was significant in two ways," said Ryan Chien, analyst for memory & storage at IHS. "Not only did the increase defy the recent trend of sales sliding during the last quarter of a year, the expansion also resulted in the period having the largest revenue results in industry history. Major contributors to NAND strength in the fourth quarter included smartphones and tablets, even though density growth is projected to slow in 2013 for each smartphone, and has been negative for tablets since 2010. For these markets, rising volumes trumped the trend of slower growth in memory usage in the fourth quarter."

The 17% sequential growth in the fourth quarter of 2012 was in stark contrast to the average 6% drop in revenues that had occurred during fourth-quarter periods for the previous five years, IHS noted. This time, growth was the result of solid product demand relative to preceding periods of weakness, coupled with a return to health for flash manufacturers. An important factor also was strength in component pricing, which fueled similar vigor in product pricing, stock pricing and - ultimately - revenues, IHS said.

Overall, the revitalized state of the industry is attracting many new entrants, even though their presence is small in what is especially a scale-intensive space, IHS observed.

The market share picture in the fourth quarter of 2012 was similar to what it was a year earlier, with Samsung and Toshiba as the top two suppliers of NAND flash memory for the industry, IHS said.

Samsung had fourth-quarter NAND revenues of approximately US$2.0 billion, ending the year with a total of US$7.5 billion or 37% market share. Samsung's quarterly revenues since 2009 has hovered between US$1.7 and US$2.1 billion, helped by integration with its booming mobile device business, particularly smartphones, IHS pointed out.

Toshiba's NAND revenues in the fourth quarter amounted to US$1.8 billion for a year-end total of US$6.2 billion - good enough for second place with a 31% share, IHS said.

SK Hynix had bigger fourth-quarter NAND revenues at US$683 million than Micron Technology's US$672 million, although their year-end ranking was reversed, with Micron's US$2.7 billion giving it nearly a 14% market share, compared to SK Hynix's US$2.3 billion that translated into an 11% share, IHS disclosed.

Intel, the fifth player of note, had fourth-quarter revenues of US$484 million for a 2012 total of US$1.4 billion, equivalent to 7% market share, IHS said.

The rest of the market, at 0.3%, was shared by once-bankrupt Spansion along with Powerchip Technology. Spansion products finally hit the market in the fourth quarter, though these are focused on customers of its industrial NOR flash and will not develop a sizable market share position, IHS indicated.

NAND flash output from Macronix International and Winbond Electronics is also expected shortly, even though they are not expected to surpass Spansion's US$10 million fourth-quarter revenue level anytime soon, IHS said.