The company said today that revenue fell 7 percent in 2012 from 21.2 billion in 2011 to $ 19.7 billion. Ultrabooks turned out to be the culprit of the decline, according to the research firm.
"A major obstacle to the NAND industry was the disappointing sales of Ultrabooks, negatively impacting the perspectives of flash memory cache drives solid state (SSD) used in computers SUPERTHIN" iSuppli wrote today in his research display. "While Ultrabooks have had some success in entering the computing experience for consumers, the global adoption has been disappointing, and a gradual increase in demand was well below expectations." Ultrabooks, laptop specification created by Intel, were supposed to be the world's best PC yet responded to Apple MacBook Air. Ultrabooks are designed to be extremely thin and light, and run on Intel processors. However, the devices have been severely affected by the application signaling mainly due to their high prices and competitiveness tablet.
In October, IHS iSuppli clearly how ultrabooks had trouble when it announced that it had reduced its sales forecast for 2012 from 22,000,000 to 10,300,000.
"There was a time when everyone knew that the 'Dude you get a Dell tagline," IHS analyst Craig Stice said at the time. "Nowadays, nobody remembers a slogan for a new PC product, including any ultrabook unique. Far, the PC industry has failed to create the kind of buzz and excitement in consumer ultrabooks are needed to propel it into the mainstream. "
However, the difficulties Ultrabook has done nothing to curb the success of other products running NAND flash memory. The Apple iPhone, for example, accounted for 10.5 percent of the supply of NAND flash memory in 2012, according to iSuppli. All other smartphones could combine for 10.4 per cent of the use of flash.
The tablets have also become a "major driving force for NAND demand," said iSuppli.
The expected success of smartphones and tablets in the coming years should help stimulate the market for flash memory. In fact, iSuppli says flash revenue jumps 22.4 billion this year and then continue its march toward $ 30 billion between 2014 and 2016.
