With more entrants in small-screen production, prices are likely to fall 20 percent in the second half of this year following a 5 percent decline last year, Saji said. Another reason Sharp is reversing its shift to small screens is the outlook for industrywide mobile phone shipments. It expects handset makers to sell between 400 million and 450 million units this year, Saji said. Mobile phone shipments in the year ended last December rose 46 percent to 412.7 million units, according to Dataquest. Sharp, which also makes flash memory chips used in mobile phones, expects the chip prices to fall 10 percent in the first half and 20 percent in the second half of this year.
Flash memory retains data even when the power is turned off.
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