USB
Sticks - a Volatile Developing Market
The USB memory stick has proved to be hugely popular.
Unlike a CD or DVD it has the added advantage that
once it has been used as a deliverable medium, it
can then be used again and again as a storage medium,
and because it has been branded, the message is
visible for the period that the stick is being used.
In the early days however, there were disadvantages
- the printing was limited; only a few styles; lacked
capacity; very expensive and lead times were comparatively
long. As a result these disadvantages sometimes
outweighed the advantages for the client.
Now we are seeing the market develop, the increase
in variety and styles, capacities and colours has
been quite dramatic. For example, you can have:-
Recess Drives where a full colour
picture is printed onto a label, a resin is applied
to the label and then placed into a recessed area
on the drive
Swivel Drives where the cover is
hinged at the back of the drive and it can be screen
printed (up to 2 colours)
Plastic casing where the casing
can be coloured, translucent, opaque and screen
printed (in up to 2 colours)
Brushed Aluminium have a matt silver
effect and the drives come in different physical
sizes and can also be screen printed.
Drives also come in a range of capacities from 64MB
up to 8GB. We've also seen a dramatic reduction
in lead times, typically a job will only take two
weeks to process from order through to delivery
(obviously depending on print, amount of data to
be copied onto the stick, etc).
However, as with all good things nothing is ever
simple! Currently the pricing of these sticks is
quite volatile - but there is a reason for this.
As flash memory is so versatile it is now being
used in a number of different products. Apple produced
the hugely successful iPod which uses solid state
memory, and now they have the iPhone which uses
the same technology. Other manufacturers such as
Nokia and Motorola are also using Flash Memory,
so demand is currently outstripping supply.
As a result of the increased demand, manufacturers
of the memory sticks are competing with other manufacturers
in other markets for the limited supply. This situation
is causing the pricing to be quite volatile as the
manufacturers of the flash memory are able to charge
a premium - good for them, not necessarily the consumer!
However, the manufacturers are trying to increase
their capacity, so hopefully within the next 4 to
6 months we should this situation settle down.
If you want to find out more, or you are interested
in producing memory sticks, please let us know and
we will see if we can help.
See also:
> Our
USB memory stick duplication services
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