Mobile computing devices such as Apple's iPad will drive sales of flash memory up 18% in 2012.
Surging sales of mobile devices such as iPhones and iPads will help drive sales of flash memory up 18% during 2012, tech tracker Gartner said Tuesday as it raised its 2012 outlook for the semiconductor industry.
Overall semiconductor sales will rise to $316 billion in 2012, up 4% from 2011, compared to the 2.2% increase the Stamford, Connecticut-based market research firm predicted late last year.
Gartner now predicts:
- Media tablet unit sales will surge 78% this year, with chip revenue from tablets reaching $9.5 billion;
- Mobile phone unit sales will rise 6.7%, and semiconductor revenue from mobile phones will total $57.2 billion;
- PC unit sales will increase 4.7%, with PC semiconductor sales totaling $57.8 billion.
Separately, tech tracker IHS said Tuesday that Apple's iPad will account for 72% of the flash memory used in media tablets this year, down from 92% in 2010.
IHS predicts that in 2015, Apple's iPad will continue to gobble up 58% of the flash memory used in tablets.
"Apple’s iPad will continue to drive the growth of NAND sales in the tablet market for the next several years," IHS analyst Dee Nguyen said in a statement.
