Thanks to the escalated demand by Apple for more flash memory chips, there is a serious shortage of availability for the memory chips also used in manufacturing flash drives. With decreased availability comes an increase in prices charged by overseas factories for the core parts used in making USB flash drives.

According to TechChips:

2GB flash memory chips rose about 25% since April, 2009: from $4.11 to $5.17 US
4GB flash memory chips rose about 8% since April, 2009:$6.61 to $7.13 US

This is a significant cost increase on the wholesale cost of the flash memory chip which has a ripple down effect on increasing the wholesale cost of the entire USB flash drive unit. Keep in mind that the flash memory chip is just one part (though the most important one) in the composition of a finished custom flash drive.

If you read both articles linked above, note that memory manufacturers refer to memory in chips in terms of Gigabits (Gb). When we refer to flash drive storage in common use, we use Gigabytes (GB). It takes 8 bits (b) to make a single byte (B). Thus, if you had a flash drive with a 32Gb (Gigabit) flash memory chip inside, it would be referred to as a 4 Gigabyte (GB) flash drive (32 Gb divided by 8 = 4 GB). In a retail setting, flash drives are typically referred to only in terms of Gigabytes (GB).

So what does this mean for you?

Due to the ever increasing popularity of flash memory chips in powering everything from ipods to notebooks to laptops to flash drives, and due to production capacities at flash memory chip manufacturers, pricing on USB flash drives can be expected to fluctuate. As giant companies (such as Apple) place more mammoth orders for memory chips, the ripple down effects will have an impact on the final cost of a finished flash drive – whether you purchase a standard one at Walmart or Staples or whether you purchase a customized flash drive from CFgear.

So don’t wait, expecting the cost of flash drives to continue to drop as they have over the past several years. Order your promotional flash drives today before prices rise any further.

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