The New York Times has published a useful article today which gives a good overview of the current state of the memory card market, and which also considers its future (found via Visually Speaking).

“Even as the flash memory business is growing rapidly over all, however, some formats are losing market share. And within the next five years, analysts say, a few will disappear altogether.

“In the long term, two memory formats will survive, Memory Stick and SD,” said Nelson Chan, senior vice president for SanDisk, the only company licensed to make and sell every flash memory format, which includes MultiMediaCard, SmartMedia and xD-Picture Card.”

Not everybody agrees with that. But in the last year, the SD memory card’s monthly market share has surged. By last November, 42 percent of all aftermarket flash memory cards sold in the United States were in the SD format. CompactFlash, its closest competitor, accounted for under 26 percent, according to the NPD Group, a market analysis company.”

Website: New York Times - Memory Evolution: Survival of the Smallest