SanDisk Best Performing Tech Stock

The stock of flash storage card maker SanDisk (SNDK) is up 236 per cent during the last year. SanDisk has the best performing stock in Silicon Valley among companies with a market capitalization over $2 billion. Worldwide, among stocks with market caps over $5 billion, SanDisk has the second best performance during this period. In this latter category, SanDisk stock has risen more than fast growing tech stocks such as Baidu (BIDU), Netflix (NFLX) and Cree (CREE).

Mobile phone memory has skyrocketed, to the point that it now accounts for half of SanDisk's revenues. Mobile sales, which were virtually nonexistent five years ago, have doubled in the last year. The Silicon Valley company is the worldwide leader in mobile flash memory. It had a 44 per cent market share in 2009.

SanDisk flash cards are key accessories of smart phones, digital cameras and portable music players. The company is also among the leaders in the nascent market for solid state drives. Flash cards for digital cameras is SanDisk's second largest source of revenue.

In interviews with Forbes and Solid State Technology, CEO Dr. Eli Harari declares that flash memory will maintain its formidable growth as manufacturing costs continue to decline.