We've been over the insanity of the computer memory market once or twice. The likes of Micron
Meet Silicon Motion
In the third quarter of 2009, Silicon Motion saw sales drop 38% year-over-year to $32.3 million, while normalized earnings decreased by 59% to $0.11 per depositary share. But the key here is that Silicon Motion is staying cash-flow positive. Unlike the memory makers, who generally can't even produce a gross profit these days, Silicon Motion is managing to stick close to the black.
And despite the grim operating environment, Silicon Motion stands poised to reap the rewards of a couple of technological paradigm changes that are happening amid all this financial chaos. It is a leader in solid-state drive technology, and the fact that even Samsung is buying its chips for use in new consumer products is proof of that solid market position.
Over the next three or four years, I expect that the combination of ever-falling memory prices and a widening performance chasm between SSDs and traditional magnetic platters will render the old hard disks obsolete. When former disk giants like Seagate
So if you want to make money in the memory market, you can forget about the memory chips themselves. There's a lot of consolidation and misery left there. Have a look at five-star CAPS stock Silicon Motion instead.
Further Foolishness: