Toshiba sees NAND prices halving in next year-CEO

LISBON, Oct 6 (Reuters) - Japan's Toshiba Corp (6502.T) expects prices for NAND flash memory chips to fall between 40 percent and 50 percent in the next four quarters to September, CEO Atsutoshi Nishida said.

Last month, Toshiba said prices slipped 45 percent in April-September from the previous six months and that it expected prices to fall 60 percent in the year to March 2009.

"We expect the drop in NAND prices, which has been steep and was unexpected, to continue over the next year, with a 40 to 50 percent drop until next September," Nishida told Reuters at the sidelines of a conference in Lisbon on innovation.

Toshiba is the world's second-largest maker of NAND chips after Korea's Samsung Electronics CO (000660.KS).

Toshiba posted an operating loss of 30 billion yen for the April-September first-half, the group's first operating loss for the period in five years, largely as a result of the slide in NAND prices.

Sliding prices in NAND chips, used in portable music players, digital cameras and cell phones, are also hurting chip makers such as Samsung and Hynix Semiconductor Inc (000660.KS). Nishida added that in order to cope with the steep fall in prices, Toshiba is shifting its production gradually to 43 nanometer flash memory from 56 nanometer chips, as this will reduce costs and increase production throughput.

"We expect to have transferred 50 percent of our flash memory production to 43 nanometer technology by November, and we aim to transfer 90 percent by March," Nishida said. (Reporting by Shrikesh Laxmidas; Editing by Victoria Bryan)