GST became the second most important factor of decline of flash drives in 2Q CY 2017

According to the new report by research firm CMR, the overall India consumer storage flash memory market, comprising Micro SD cards, SD cards flash drives, and pen drives witnessed a 53 percent decline in 2Q CY 2017 as against 2Q CY 2016, in terms of units shipped.

Shipra Sinha, Analyst, Consumer Storage Flash Memory Market, "The Micro SD Cards are the largest contributor to the consumer storage flash memory market and therefore, the growth of large internal memory mobile phones has influenced the sector a lot."

Sinha said that "Lot of price variations among the branded products resulted in the stocks accumulation in 2Q CY 2017, this became one of the major factors of a decline of overall Consumer Storage Flash Memory Market in 2Q CY 2017."

"The sales were largely affected especially in June 2017 because of current Modi Government's plan to introduce Goods and Services Tax (GST) in July 2017.The plan to launch GST forced the brands to buy very limited stocks which they could sell in that same period. Hence GST became the second most important factor of decline of Consumer Storage Flash Memory Market in 2Q CY 2017," Shipra added.

The report further said that, in the overall India consumer storage flash memory market, SanDisk continued to be the most favored vendor.

However, its market share decreased from 50 percent in 1Q CY2017 to 41 percent in 2Q CY2017.

Strontium grabbed the number two position and Sony captured the number three spot in terms of unit shipments in 2Q CY 2017.

"Going forward the market will witness a shift towards higher capacity segments because of almost all major vendors moving towards implementing 3D Flash Technology in their manufacturing process," Shipra further added.

Shipra pointed out that, "Lucrative offers floated by different brands during the forthcoming festive season, sellers buying the usual stocks after the dust being cleared around GST will pace up the sales in coming quarters.