Samsung Electronics has lost five per cent of its share of the Nand Flash memory market, despite the technology seeing a global sales increase of more than a third.

Figures from analyst firm iSuppli show that global sales of Nand Flash jumped by more than 37 per cent in the third quarter of 2007.

However, Samsung's share of the market dropped from 45 per cent to 40 per cent, even though the company posted $1.7bn in sales.

Toshiba remained in second place with 27 per cent market share, despite chairman Shozo Saito's efforts to turn the company into the world's biggest supplier of Nand Flash memory by 2008.

Third placed Hynix saw the biggest overall rise with sales of $806m and a jump of 79 per cent over the previous quarter.

ISuppli said that the top three manufacturers made up 87 per cent of the market, but that smaller players also made gains in the quarter.

Micron's sales rose by 75.5 per cent to $285.4m, and Intel's share rose 47.9 per cent to $132m.

ISuppli said that the jump in Nand sales had been fuelled by demand for consumer electronics, and that prices would drop by 18 per cent as manufacturing output exceeded demand.