Samsung has extended its sales lead in the Nand Flash market over Toshiba as market prices picked up in the second quarter.

Analyst iSuppli noted that Samsung’s global Nand Flash memory revenue amounted to $1.4bn (£707m) in the second quarter, up 18.9 per cent from $1.2bn in the first quarter.

This boosted the company’s share of the market to 45.9 per cent, an increase of nearly two per cent from 44.1 per cent in Q1. This revenue boost allowed the Korean electronics giant to easily outperform the market and pull away from its two closest rivals, Toshiba and Hynix.

In contrast, Japan’s Toshiba performed weakly in Q2 and watched the gap between it and Samsung widen by five per cent to 18.4 per cent. Its new production process might help close the gap as the year progresses, iSuppli concluded.

Total Nand bit shipments increased by nine per cent in the second quarter, down from the 32 per cent jump in Q1, but was offset by higher prices. Average selling prices per megabyte increased by five per cent in Q2.

“Samsung’s strong performance in the second quarter was due to its 11 per cent growth in bit shipments,” explained Nam Hyung Kim, director and chief analyst for memory ICs and storage systems at iSuppli.

“This major increase in shipments was due to Samsung expanding its sales to consumer applications,” Hyung Kim added. “Meanwhile, Toshiba increased its bit growth by only two per cent due to its initial process migration to 56nm. However, iSuppli expects Toshiba’s 56nm production yields to improve, causing its bit shipments to rise by more than 30 per cent this quarter.”

The Nand Flash market is going through a strong period of growth this year. Turnover in Q2 rose to $3bn, up 14.4 per cent on Q1, making it the strongest quarterly growth since 2005. Prices were boosted in Q2 thanks to shortage of Nand Flash units.

Intel and Micron, which set up a joint-operation IM Flash Technologies, saw strong Q2 growth. Intel’s Nand bit shipments jumped by 75 per cent during Q2, while Micron achieved a 72 per cent leap.

In related news, leading DRam maker Promos announced a Q2 net loss of $115.5m on sales of $305m, thanks mainly to DRam price erosion.

“The worse than expected performance in the second quarter of fiscal 2007 was mainly due to DRam price erosion and unproportionately low production output caused by problems encountered in the process of converting from 90nm to 70nm,” said Ben Tseng, vice president at Promos.