Toshiba slices chip production by a third

Japanese NAND warrior shrinks with falling prices

Toshiba, the world's second-biggest NAND chip-maker, has announced a 30 per cent cut in flash memory chip production today to respond to market oversupply, declining prices and losses at the firm.

Toshiba is the last of Japan's big chipmakers after Elpida Memory – which had been Japan's only DRAM flash maker – filed for bankruptcy in February. Despite coming a close second to Samsung in the NAND flash game, Tosh is still feeling the pinch of tumbling prices for memory.

"Oversupply of NAND flash memory in the retail market, for application in USB memories and memory cards, has resulted in continual price declines since the beginning of this year," the company said in a canned statement.

"Toshiba has responded by adjusting shipments to the retail market since June and from today will reduce the operating rate at the plant in order to adjust output."

Stepping down production at its operation in Mie Prefecture in Japan will cut its overall chipmaking by around 30 per cent, the firm said.

Toshiba reckons that high growth forecasts for tablets, smartphones and Ultrabooks – with concurrent improving demand for NAND flash – will help it do better in the quarter from July to September, ®