As Latest SSD Prices Hit $0.65 per Gigabyte, OCZ Forecasts Further Drop of Costs.

OCZ: New SSD Products Hit $0.65 per Gigabyte, More Cost-Cutting Options Available

[05/02/2012 10:09 PM]
by Anton Shilov

OCZ Technology Group said that thanks to recent NAND flash memory price drops as well as due to advancements in its proprietary controller technology let the company to decrease prices of solid-state drives to approximately $0.65 per 1GB. Moreover, the company sees possibilities to further decrease prices of SSDs, such as usage of triple-level cell (TLC) NAND flash as well as usage of NAND flash memory produced using 10nm-class process technology.

"With recent NAND flash price decreases, we have been able to introduce market leading products with price points of approximately $0.65 per gigabyte without negatively impacting our gross margins. These cost reductions continue to drive SSD adoption and we feel it is critical to continue to drive cost down. With that, we planned to launch both 10nm-class memory and TLC support during the year subject to NAND availability. In short, we expect recent declines in NAND flash pricing to make SSDs more attractive to mainstream applications such as SANs, network appliances, ultrabooks and mainstream servers," said Ryan Petersen, chief executive officer of OCZ Technology, during quarterly conference call with financial analysts.

The $1-per-GB price has been for a long time considered as a holy grail for solid-state drives as it is widely believed that at such price points SSDs will start to be adopted by mainstream users. At $0.65-per-GB and below, solid-state drives will get even more popular not only inside higher-end laptops, but also on the market of PC upgrades.

OCZ Technology this week reported its fourth quarter (Q4 FY2012) and year-end results for the fiscal year 2012, which ended on February 29, 2012. The lion's share of the company's sales is represented by solid-state drives in traditional hard drive form-factors.

Financial highlights:

During the FY2012, net revenue increased 92% to $365.8 million compared with fiscal year 2011 net revenue of $190.1 million. Fiscal year 2012, SSD revenue was $338.9 million, up 154% compared with $133.2 million in fiscal year 2011. Fiscal year 2012 gross margins increased to 22.5% compared to 12.7% with fiscal year 2011.
Net revenue in Q4 FY2012 was a record $110.4 million, an increase of 71% compared with net revenue of $64.6 million reported in Q4 2011. SSD revenue in Q4 FY2012 reached a record $103.2 million; an increase of 77% compared with Q4 2011 SSD revenue of $58.2 million. Gross margin in Q4 FY2012 increased to 25.0% compared with 16.6% in Q4 2011, and 22.5% in Q3 FY2012. Net loss for Q4 FY2012 was $10.9 million or $0.19 loss per share compared with a net loss of $9.3 million or $0.27 loss per share in Q4 2011.

OCZ expects net revenue for its first fiscal quarter ending May 31, 2012 (Q1 2013), to be in the range of $110 to $120 million. OCZ expects net revenue for its fiscal year ending February 28, 2013 (FY 2013) to be in the range between $630 and $700 million. OCZ specifically noted that the prediction was made only keeping in mind historical trends and the guidance does not include possible technology breakthroughs. The company expects to be profitable in FY2013.