Global USB 3.0 Flash Drives Market Projected to Reach US$3B by 2020

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The USB 3.0 flash drives market is highly consolidated with the strong presence of prominent players such as HP, SanDisk, and Lexar, along with Samsung, Kingston, Transcend, Fischer Connectors, and Toshiba Electronics. The existing players are expected to face stiff competition with more number of vendors entering the market.

In order to safeguard their market share and sustainability, the main global players as well as regional vendors are developing and innovating products to gain traction and earn greater shares in the global USB 3.0 flash drives market, finds Transparency Market Research (TMR).

According to a TMR report, the global USB 3.0 flash drives market is projected to reach $3.1 billion by the end of 2020 from its initial value of $1.1 billion in 2015. The market is set to grow at a steady CAGR of 23.5% during the forecast period from 2016 to 2020. 

High Capacity Flash Drives Enjoy Popularity  

The global USB 3.0 flash drives market can be segmented on the basis of capacity into 4 GB, 16 GB, 64 GB, 128 GB, and 256 GB. The 16GB and 64GB drives are preferred over the others in the segment due to massive storage space and compact sizes. With development in technology, the physical size of flash drives is becoming smaller by the day, making them more portable. The consumers are now able to buy bigger storage space devices due to the improvement in physical size. The growth in the volume of data in the recent years has led to consumers favoring flash drives with greater storage capacity, thereby driving the demand. 

In terms of demand and production, Asia Pacific is leading the global market for USB 3.0 flash drives. It is projected that this region will continue to hold its dominant position in the forecast period as well. The leading manufacturers of USB 3.0 flash drives have their base in this region, making it easier for consumers to get a better reach. The large number of consumers come from two of the most populated countries of this region – India and China – making it a bigger market for the device. The digital electronic market is enormous, giving easy access to USB flash vendors to penetrate in the region. 

Europe and North America are the two promising markets for USB 3.0 flash drives. The skyrocketing demand for USB 3.0 flash drives has made these regions a hotbed for many foreign and domestic vendors.  Europe and North America are both planning to become self-sufficient in manufacturing USB 3.0 flash drives. With highly advanced IT and consumer electronics industry infrastructures, these regions are willing to take a giant leap and produce USB 3.0 flash drives with greater volumes. 

High Production Cost

The primary reason for the demand growth of global USB 3.0 flash drives is the increase in data volumes being transferred. Due to improved quality, digital data is increasing in virtual size. Consumers are looking for faster and better ways to transfer data to accommodate quality files, which are larger in size such as copies of music files and movie files, hence fueling the market demand for USB 3.0 flash drives.

The major challenge currently faced by the manufactures of USB 3.0 flash drives is the high production cost. Due to this factor, consumers have to think twice before paying for such devices, limiting the market growth.  To reach a breakeven point, the manufacturers are struggling to reduce product cost. However, with the improvement of manufacturing methods, this issue is likely to be resolved over time, as the manufacturers will be able to cut down on cost of production.