According to a recent report by Gartner Research, the over-supply of NAND Flash chips in 2007 greatly impacted the world's USB Flash drive market. Gartner calculates the total sales revenue of USB flash drives in 2007 to be US$2.66 billion, with worldwide shipment of roughly 171 million units. Although overall shipment enjoyed a huge increase, total sales revenue remained steady due to last year's slow growth in capacity. In Gartner's 2007 list of the top Flash drive manufacturers, Transcend was ranked No.3, with 8.7% market share; up 1 place from its 7.5% fourth place ranking in 2006.
Gartner pointed out that the Flash drive market has seriously matured in the past few years. Due to fierce competition in the Flash industry last year, some weak manufacturers were ultimately eliminated from the market. Nonetheless, in 2007's NAND flash survival of the fittest, Transcend leveraged its outstanding performance in the USB flash drive segment to emerge triumphant. Transcend has made great strides in the areas of channel management and brand development, and now enjoys a leading position in the NAND Flash markets of Taiwan, Europe, India and Russia. Moreover, Transcend's market share in Japan and China has recently shown amazing growth. All of these factors have contributed to Transcend's remarkable third place ranking in the global Flash Drive market.