2010 Will Likely Bring Another Apple Induced Memory Crunch, Higher Prices

With Apple iPhones constantly pushing the mobile memory barrier, experts are expecting 2010 to be yet another year of higher memory prices and tightening supply as the Cupertino company continues to buy up memory at record rates.

According to reports, the average iPhone by the end of 2010 could be holding up to 35GB of storage, 3GB higher than the companies largest offering today. Those same reports are expecting a 32 percent increase in Apple iPhone sales worldwide which will put an even larger strain on NAND flash memory supplies, which, according to Electronista will in turn will lead to “periods of undersupply.”

If Apple decides to follow their companies typical history of doubling their devices memory every year, 64GB may even become a norm by the end of the year for iPhones and 128GB iPod Touches could hit the market, sizes which would slightly cripple the memory market.

With added competition from Android based phones, Blackberry devices and WebOS Smartphones the situation could lead to large levels of undersupply, which in turn will continue to push up memory prices. In 2009 many memory cards as much as doubled in price as Apple continued to nearly corner the market for NAND flash memory.

Throw in more portable devices such as the iPad, eBooks and other tablet and netbook type devices and the outlook isn’t all that great for companies attempting to buy up memory for their own products, especially if they don’t want to push up the MSRP on their products.