• Improving the scaling limits year on year, smartphone manufacturers sell smartphones at a premium by upgrading the memory capacity to boost the performance.
• With 5G wireless communication on its way, the use of smartphones would increase multifold, increasing the demand for the latest models to raise the bar continuously.
• Samsung, four years after launching the first universal flash storage solution, the 128-gigabyte (GB) eUFS, has passed the terabyte threshold in smartphone storage using its in-house most advanced 512-gigabit (Gb) V-NAND flash memory.
• Flash memory storage has become an essential component in smartphones, not only for consumers whose demand for storage keeps on increasing with content creation but also for OEMs from bill of materials (BoM) cost perspective. The NAND flash demand has been growing exponentially, primarily driven by the growth of the average capacity in smartphones, which was expected to cross 60GB per smartphone in Q4 2018.

Asia-Pacific is one of the largest markets for NAND flash in the world. The region has a high demand from almost all the end-user applications alike, primarily led by the demand for smartphones in several developing countries in the region, such as China, India, Indonesia, etc.

• There is a high activity from the semiconductor fabrication facilities in countries like China, Korea, and Singapore. The Chinese government's initiatives, such as Made in China 2025 has drawn substantial capital from memory manufacturers. The country has set goals to reach USD 305 billion in semiconductor output by 2030 and meet at least 80 of domestic demand for semiconductors, which are expected to draw more investments into the country.
• Owing to such developments in China, several competitors in the region are intensifying their efforts of expansion. For example, as of February 2019, SK Hynix, the world’s second largest memory-chip maker announced that it is planning to invest USD 106 billion to establish four new semiconductor fabrication plants in Seoul, South Korea.