Demand for Low Power and Feasible Memory Devices to Pave Way for Innovation

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The global next generation memory technologies market was extremely concentrated over the last couple of years owing to the dominance of a few leading companies, says Transparency Market Research (TMR) in a research report. Samsung electronics Co., Fujitsu Ltd., Micron Technology Inc, Everspin Technologies Inc, SK Hynix Inc, Crocus Technology SA, Avalanche Technology, Ramtron International Co., Cypress Semiconductor Co., and STMicroelectronics N.V. are the leading companies operating in the global next generation memory technologies market.

At present, the degree of competition in the market is medium but is expected to intensify over the next couple of years owing to the rise in innovation and launch of developed products. For instance, three companies launched their personal designs such as Fujitsu introduced FeRAM, Everspin introduced MRAM and Micron introduced PCM. The top three companies, Fujitsu Ltd., Everspin Technology Inc., and Micron Technologies, collectively accounted for a share of 83.7% in the global next generation memory technologies market in 2012. 

The global next generation memory technologies market is expected to exhibit promising growth over the coming years. The market is projected to rise to a valuation of US$2,837.0 mn by the end of 2019.

Cache Memory and Enterprise Storage to Take over Mobile Phones by 2019

In terms of application, the global next generation memory technologies market has been classified into mobile phones, cache memory and enterprise storage, industrial and automotive, mass storage, and embedded MCU and smart card. The market is expected to witness a paradigm shift altogether in the applications segment with cache memory and enterprise storage taking over the leading position of mobile phones by the end of 2019 with a share of 29% in the same year. Mass storage and industrial and automotive segments are also expected to emerge as potential markets for vendors of next generation memory technologies to capitalize on.

According to a TMR analyst, “The demand for cache memory and enterprise devices is expected to intensify over the next couple of years owing to the high performance and reliability they exhibit and growing number of read/write memory technologies.” Moreover, the cache memory hierarchy is slowly becoming a bottleneck for bigger systems. The need for high speed in cache memory and enterprise storage devices is performance limiting and also expensive in terms of both power consumption and cost. As a result of this, emerging high speed memories are gaining importance among consumers across the globe.

Geographically, the market was previously dominated by North America, but Asia Pacific is expected to challenge the position of North America and gain the leading spot with a projected share of 40.2% in 2019. The growth of the Asia Pacific next generation memory technologies market can be attributed to the rising demand for high speed and low cost memory devices in countries such as South Korea, China, and Japan. The mounting sales of consumer electronics such as PCs, laptops, and smartphones are further expected to bode well for the growth of the market in the region.

Profit Margin Volatility to Compel Employment of New Memory Technologies

Players operating in the market are being compelled to introduce memory devices that are feasible in nature so that they can have high profit margins. This scenario is the result of the high price volatility of the existing memory devices. At the past, to aid the growing prices of memory devices and boost the demand, companies had to decrease their fabrication capacity. However, manufacturers can gain from the rising demand for universal solutions for memory devices.