Strategy Analytics: MicroSD Eclipses Rivals in Cellphone Memory Card Format War

According to a new report from Strategy Analytics, "over the next five years, sales of slotted phones--cellphones with a removable memory card slot--are expected to grow at an annual average rate of 52 percent, with almost three-quarters of all new phones sold in 2010 likely to include a slot. Meanwhile, sales of memory cards for cellphones are expected to grow at a rate of 53 percent over the next five years, reaching almost 1.1 billion cards by 2010."

Stuart Robinson at Strategy Analytics said, "MicroSD has rapidly become the format of choice for new mobile phone designs, with design wins far exceeding those for MMCmicro and Sony's new micro-sized format, the M2. While the M2 will quickly replace the larger Memory Stick formats, it will remain a long way behind the microSD format and some way behind the MMCmicro format in cellphones."

Stephen Entwistle at Strategy Analytics added, "In 2005 the average capacity of memory cards sold for use in cellphones was 112MB per card. By 2010 we predict that this will have increased to around 1.6GB, equivalent to an annual average growth rate of over 70 percent."

How about miniSD? So far there are way too many memory card formats. Cna't the industry just standardize on one? It would make things a lot easier...