Apple (AAPL) buying NAND

Apple is the primary driver of the NAND market by virtue of their hegemony in the mp3 player market. Nobody does it better.

Though no one will directly confirm it, it's pretty clear from the strength in spot and contract prices that Apple is restocking NAND. Since guiding iPods down after their last report, the company was dead in the water allocation-wise -- we're talking bins of NAND marked Apple that just sat there gathering dust all quarter. Since the close of their March quarter, they're back in some force from what I gather. This probably means an iPod refresh is coming in the next 3 months -- probably with more storage space as prices have come down quite a bit. One could also speculate that Apple has been getting very good prices from cash-starved memory manufacturers and this will bolster gross margins in the June quarter as costs fall. Furthermore, I believe the 3G iPhone ramp was slated to begin in earnest in April, which also could explain the activity.

Whatever the reason, they're back.

Half the output of the Intel/Micron JV IMFlash goes to Apple. I like and own Micron.