Why do USB flash drive prices keep changing?

So, why do the prices of USB flash drives often change, and what factors are at play here?

The price of a USB pen drive mainly comes from two things: the chip and casing. The main brands of chips include Samsung, Hyundai, Micron, Intel, Toshiba, and others. Most of these chips are made in Taiwan.

Now, here's where it gets interesting: Taiwanese manufacturers and Hong Kong distributors pretty much control the chip market. They manipulate the chip market by controlling production and shipment volumes to maximize profits. Back in 2008 when USB memory sticks were super cheap, you could snag a regular 1GB chip for just about 1 dollar! But that also caused some serious losses for companies upstream. So starting late 2008, those upstream manufacturers banded together to cut back on production—and guess what? Chip prices started climbing fast! By 2009, that same 1GB chip was going for nearly 6 dollars—over six times higher!

Because Shenzhen manufacturers don’t have much say over pricing themselves, they had no choice but to raise the prices of USB thumb drives accordingly. That’s why our quotation can only be valid for about 1 week to a few weeks.

Even though chip prices have dropped quite a bit recently and seem pretty stable now, changes can still happen based on production issues or market shifts.

Small Storage, Beautiful Life. 

Shenzhen MingFu Tech Co.,Ltd is a professional company that produces storage products, including USB Flash Drive, USB C Memory Stick, Type-C USB Thumb Drive, SD Memory Card products.

Our philosophy: "Committed to the development and application of mobile storage series products!" With 15 years under our belt in making storage devices professionally, we’ve become one of the standout suppliers in the IT industry when it comes to comprehensive storage solutions.