March 13 (Bloomberg) -- SanDisk Corp., the biggest maker of flash-memory cards for digital cameras, rose 11 percent in Nasdaq trading on renewed speculation that Samsung Electronics Co. or Toshiba Corp. may make a bid.

One of those companies might be planning to make a new offer for SanDisk, the EE Times reported today. Samsung withdrew a hostile bid last year. Toshiba, SanDisk’s partner in a Japanese flash-manufacturing operation, said in December that it had no intention to buy the company.

SanDisk reported losses of more than $2 billion last year as an industry glut sent chip prices plummeting. Consumers also have cut back on purchases of electronics as they cope with the recession, eating into sales. SanDisk’s cards provide storage in a range of devices, including cameras and mobile phones.

SanDisk, based in Milpitas, California, rose $1.10 to $11.05 at 4 p.m. New York time on the Nasdaq Stock Market. The shares have climbed 15 percent this year.

The company doesn’t comment on rumors or speculation, said SanDisk spokesman Mike Wong. Chris Goodhart, a Samsung spokeswoman in San Jose, California, also declined to comment.

Samsung, the world’s second-largest chipmaker, dropped its $5.85 billion takeover offer for SanDisk in October. The company said it withdrew the $26-a-share cash bid because talks failed to make “meaningful progress” over six months.

Missing Estimates

SanDisk forecast first-quarter sales of at most $575 million last month, missing the $631.9 million estimated by analysts in a Bloomberg survey. SanDisk also said it may try to raise as much as $500 million in a stock offering -- a sign of desperation, Lazard Capital Markets analyst Daniel Amir said at the time. The company’s shares plunged 71 percent last year.

SanDisk also is selling Toshiba more than 20 percent of the production capacity in their joint venture, a bid to boost cash and reduce equipment-lease obligations. Toshiba, Japan’s largest chipmaker, forecast a record annual loss for this year.

While SanDisk leads the flash-card market, Samsung is the biggest maker of the memory chips used inside the devices. Toshiba is the second-largest maker of those kinds of semiconductors.

Intel Corp., the world’s largest chipmaker overall, also competes in the market. It runs a flash-manufacturing business jointly with Micron Technology Inc.

To contact the reporters on this story: Ian King in San Francisco at ianking@bloomberg.net

Last Updated: March 13, 2009 16:24 EDT