UK: What's Going On With CF Card Prices (SanDisk)?

On 21st August 2009 I bought a SanDisk Extreme III 16GB CF card, which cost me £60.49. Just over a year later I look them up in order to buy a second one - expecting the prices to have fallen - and they've gone up in price! The cheapest I can find one (from a known or reputable seller) is £66.99.

What's going on here? My previous experience with anything storage memory-related is that the prices drop considerably over time.

Is there a world shortage or something?

Mike

They released an entirely new generation of cards so basically they jacked up the prices just as they always do with any new technology. Since very little of the older stock remains in inventories merchants can pretty much price them to sell out quicker or jack the price slightly under the cost of the newer stuff. Prices probably wont fall to much until sales start to fall off which probably wont happen anytime soon with the 60D coming out.

Mike-DT6 wrote in post #10818076
What's going on here? My previous experience with anything storage memory-related is that the prices drop considerably over time.

Is there a world shortage or something?

Mike

Memory prices fluctuate almost daily depending upon market conditions. It's all based upon supply & demand.

I'd wait to see what happens in the Fall or early next year. Weak consumer spending during the back-to-school season has caused a few semiconductor manufacturers to lower their forecasts or narrow their guidance for the 3rd quarter and some into 1st quarter 2011. That usually equates to us (the consumer) seeing lower prices as they attempt to move inventory.

Btw, NAND flash memory prices are expected to drop from $1.20 to $1.00 per gig on SSD drives this Fall as per several articles I've seen in August.

Thanks for your replies. I might hang on a bit longer then, unless I get desperate!

Mike

Camel Toe Coalition wrote in post #10821781
Prices probably wont fall to much until sales start to fall off which probably wont happen anytime soon with the 60D coming out.

Somehow I don't expect the 60D to impact CF prices much...

Keep an eye on camerapricebuster website as they often show retailers having offers on sandisk cards, I got my last 8gb one for half price

Shelton.

vachss wrote in post #10827491
Somehow I don't expect the 60D to impact CF prices much...

Not just the 60D but in general all these new cameras everyone is upgrading to for video and greater functionality suddenly wont find cheap 2-4GB cards to be sufficient anymore. Which means lots of new cards are going to be selling along with the new devices. Some pros buying higher end gear are more likely to already have 16-64GB cards then someone buying a 60D.

The only thing using CF is a few high end SLRs now. So the market and supply is shrinking and there is less competition.

That said, I find Kingston to be within 90% of the performance of Sandisk Extreme for a lot less money. Don't be afraid to switch brands.

Shultz wrote in post #10827908
Keep an eye on camerapricebuster website as they often show retailers having offers on sandisk cards, I got my last 8gb one for half price

Shelton.

is there something similar for US markets?

7dayshop are selling the 8gb 30MB/s CF cards for £19.99 delivered - these seem difficult to find these days at a decent price for some reason.

That sounds cheap.

I was a bit suspicious of some of the cards pictured on certain websites as the label looks different from mine. I have heard that there are a lot of counterfeit CF cards on the market.

Mike