Violin Memory (VMEM) began trading on the NYSE on 27 Sept 2013

Mountain View, Calif-based manufacturer of flash memory arrays debuted on the NYSE today.

Executives and guests of Violin Memory, Inc. visit the New York Stock Exchange to celebrate the company's IPO on September 27, 2013 in New York City.

Shares of solid-state storage vendor Violin Memory plunged more than 17 percent on the company's first day of trading Friday, but analysts said the market for flash storage remains hot.

Violin raised just over $160 million in an initial public offering (IPO) on the New York Stock Exchange, which the company will use primarily to expand its global sales and marketing capabilities. But the shares, which the company had priced at $9 per share, started trading far below that and closed at $7.11, down $1.89, or 21 percent. The weak result came on a gloomy day overall, with the Dow Jones Industrial Average and the tech-heavy Nasdaq both down.

The market's lukewarm response to Violin's IPO doesn't spell gloom for flash storage, which is still a young and fast-growing technology, industry analysts said. Enterprises are buying flash to speed up access to their data, and the price premium for the solid-state media versus spinning disks is shrinking.