Samsung is one of the world's largest manufacturers of NAND flash memory and according to one of the regular customers, Samsung has announced that the supply of NAND chips will be lower from July and onward. The reason is that Samsung's main customer Apple has ordered a rather substantial amount of NAND flash chip. According to DigiTimes' source, Apple has ordered 8Gb NAND flash chips worth more than $50 million dollars. This chip is one of the main ingredients of Apple's iPhone. With iPhone 3G reaching markets soon, we can't say that we're surprised by these news. Apple will need tons of chips to fill all those phones.
Samsung's other customers are perhaps not as happy as the potential iPhone buyers, especially as they've found out that Apple comes first and that they are second. The fact remains though, that Samsung adjusted the product volume in May already, but not to make more but less chips, which means that the supply is already strained. Exactly how bad this is remains to be seen, especially since Apple already made large orders earlier this year, while the iPhone sales will more or less dictate the need for chips.
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Samsung hoarding flash memory for Apple
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