The market of memory modules may grow 12% this year compared to 2005, according to the latest findings of market research firm DRAMeXchange. Among the top 20 of the world’s largest makers of memory modules only two come from China and Japan , while the rest are based either in the U.S. or Taiwan with Kingston being the world’s largest memory module maker.

Based on DRAMeXchange’s latest figures, global dynamic random access memory (DRAM) module sales reached $4.92 billion during Q1 2006. Among the $4.92 billion, $2.55 billion were generated by memory module houses that shipped their modules to retail markets, while own-brand modules accounted for as much as 75% of the overall $2.55 billion sales figure.

In terms of the shipment region, Taiwan was responsible for 23% of global memory module shipments ranking 2^nd after the U.S. ’s 46.9% share, claims DRAMeXchange.

Sales breakdown by DDR2 and DDR stood at 29.1: 58.2 in 1Q, reflecting that DDRs are still the mainstream product in the retail market. Memory density mainly concentrated at 512MB at a ratio of 55.5%, which outstripped 256MB’s 21.3%. DRAMeXchange observed a growing adoption of the 1GB module on the sideline of density migration.

DRAMeXchange predicts that the global memory industry bit growth will decline from the higher growth levels witnessed in the previous two years, which may reach only 47.8% year-over-year in 2006. Although a downturn is projected for the bit growth this year, the rising proportion of both non- commodity DRAM and NAND Flash chips will constrain the price fall of DRAMs in contrast to previous years. This may sustain annual DRAM module sales growth to 12% year-over-year in 2006.