SSD prices jump as Toshiba cuts production

Supply and demand it at work in the SSD market – and it appears to be pushing pricing up. KitGuru wonders if a complete series of ‘SSD price drop' stories might now need to get published in reverse.

When all is said and done, there are only a handful of genuine memory manufacturers in the world – Samsung, Micron and Toshiba among them. When these guys ramp up with the production, prices could drop and when they stop, prices can rise.

Why would they push production up and down?   Well its a very simple, but effective way to control market prices. If these guys actually sat in a room together and fixed the pricing, that would feel seriously illegal. But each company is well within its rights to increase/decrease production according to the direction of its CFO (Chief Financial Officer) etc.

The drop off in Toshiba production will be around 30% and has happened already.

Toshiba will turn the tap back on toward the end of Q3, once it can see an increase in production for PCs, tablets and mobile phones.

HQ sent out a statement that put it in a nutshell, “This move will help reduce inventory in the market and improve the overall balance between supply and demand”. In other words, production down and prices up. Nice.

Real world example?    Scan managed to get the 120GB Kingston HyperX 3k down to £64, but now we're seeing companies like Play.com up past £90. That's an increase of more than 40%. Damn this production control seems to work.

KitGuru says: If you are really in the market for a 120GB drive, then you need to decide if you are going to spot a bargain ‘now' or wait for October/November.

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