In March we saw the enormous devastation caused by the Tsunami in Japan send shock waves through the technology sector.  Fear of damage to vital factories, existing inventories, and uncertainty about Japanese infrastructure caused some pretty crazy pricing for a few days directly after the event.  There was also a lot of talk in the media about the entire supply chain being a problem, even if there were no real memory inventory shortages. Fortunately these dire predictions were proven incorrect mostly because of the 4 factors below.

1)      No major flash manufacturers sustained any  direct damage to their infrastructure or manufacturing facilities.  The only real slowdowns they suffered were related to shutting down shifts to preserve power for resuce and recovery efforts. 

2)       The fear of wafer manufacturers and other secondary component makers who were affected not being able to make sufficient product to meet global demand was over-hyped.   

 3)      The global economy has been sluggish and is now entering the summer season where demand is typically lower.

 4)      Apple, the largest consumer of NAND flash and other major flash consumers didn’t rush their delivery dates and use up available inventories for fear of dwindling supplies.  They all waited to see if there was sufficient reason for concern before reacting in appropriately.

Flash is traded as a commodity, just like Oil and Pork Bellies.   Because of this prices are continuously changing and are subject to some pretty wild swings at the best of times.  Fortunately there was really no material shortage given the factors above and prices returned to normal ranges  within a period of a few days.

Barker Specialty Company recently published a press release regarding their Annual Vendor Dinner and their Award winners.  LogoIncluded was the proud recipient of the Customer Service of the Year Staff award.

On March 8th, 2011 – Barker Specialty Company of Chesire, Connecticut, hosted their Annual Vendor Diner with nearly 100 suppliers in attendance.  Read more…

Related posts: LogoIncluded Wins Barker Specialty 2011 Best Customer Service Award

It appears that the original panic has calmed a bit and prices are unchanged today  from Wednesday.  The major concern at this point appears to be how the damage to component suppliers ( wafers, etc) will affect supply in the longer term.   We are able to get inventory  as needed, and are able to ship orders within normal leadtimes.  Prices remain good for today only as things could still change very quickly, but rest assured we are still doing everything in our power to continue to produce your orders quickly, efficiently, and to minimize the financial strain for our valued distributor partners.  We will update further if there are any significant changes to either  pricing or supply issues.  Thanks for your business and confidence in us during this difficult time.

Good news. Last night we saw prices stabilize a bit and some available inventory. We are still fulfiling orders and quoting on short lead times. The market is still full of uncertainty and prices can and most likely will continue to fluctuate wildly for a few days. We will continue to provide updates as the situation continues to stabilize and we get a more accurate picture of where prices are going to trend. We appreciate your loyalty and patience through this trying time and our continued thoughts and prayers are with the Japanese people who are so horribly affected by this tragedy.

The rolling blackouts and outages continue in Japan, as well as the fear of even more widespread radioactive pollution from the Fukushima Dai-ichi Nuclear power plant and any disruptions this may cause.  There are not only problems with the NAND flash supply, but there have been supply chain disruptions for wafer manufacturers and other electronic component manufacturers.    We are still getting details slowly and there is still much confusion and fear in the market place.  We have been able to purchase inventory and are currently quoting spot market prices that are valid till 4:00PM EDT of the same day.  For larger quantities we are confirming inventory availability and pricing daily on an order by order basis.  We continue to work to ensure as little disruption to you, our distributor partners as possible.  We appreciate your support and will continue to provide updates as they are available and the picture begins to clear and pricing / inventory  picture firms up.

With the current tragedy unfolding in Japan from the Earthquake last Friday, we are seeing huge increases in the cost of NAND flash memory, which is the memory component in a USB flash drive.  Approximately 50% of the world’s flash memory is produced in Japan, so there is widespread fear of inventory shortages.   This has caused prices to go up overnight 50-60 % across the board, and we are likely to see more price increases as available inventory drops in the market. Luckily the production plants in Japan weren’t directly affected, so we remain hopeful that the situation will be short lived. We are working diligently to minimize the impact of this to our valued distributor partners and we will continue to provide updates as this situation continues to unfold.  Our thoughts and prayers go out to the unfortunate people in Japan who have been so directly affected by this  tragedy.