Time flies when you're having a good time: it has been almost 2 years since the market for memory has been very bad. Prices plummeted dramatically for manufacturers who have had a great deal of trouble to keep their heads above water, especially the little ones (manufacturers, not heads). Leading analysts hoped that 2008 would mark the end of the crisis thanks to strong growth in the market for SSD drives and Walkmans. But today Apple -- who buys 13% of world production for its iPod -- fearing a slowdown in sales during the year, decreased the volume of its orders. This means that we will end up again with estimates of production higher than sales, which will cause a further decline in prices. The fact remains that for the first time in many years, the market for Apple's very profitable portable will have little or no growth. This expectation drove the significant reductions in the price of their 1 GB iPod shuffle while the 2GB model has not yet been announced commercially, evidence they are looking primarily to volume and to avoid a reduction in the number of players sold. [translation by jeremy]

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	www.hardmac.com/news/2008-02-21/#7825