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SANDISK INTRODUCES WORLD'S FIRST 2-GIGABYTE MEMORY STICK PRO DUO CARD AND LAUNCHES HIGH-SPEED ULTRA II MEMORY STICK PRO DUO LINE
ORLANDO, Fla.--(BUSINESS WIRE)--Feb. 21, 2005--Memory Stick Format Expands Beyond Digital Cameras to Other Electronic Devices, Spurs Demand for More Memory and Faster Performance
With growing sales of high-resolution digital cameras, video camcorders and other electronic devices that require more memory and speed, SanDisk(R) Corporation (NASDAQ:SNDK) today announced a 2-gigabyte (GB)* Memory Stick PRO Duo(TM) flash storage card and a new Memory Stick PRO Duo family in the SanDisk Ultra(R) II line. The announcements were made during the Photo Marketing Association (PMA) show at the Orange County Convention Center, where SanDisk is exhibiting in Booth 2408.
The latest Memory Stick offerings, which are expected to ship this spring, give SanDisk the world's first 2GB Memory Stick PRO Duo cards. That capacity will be available in both the existing Standard line and the new SanDisk Ultra II Memory Stick PRO Duo line, which provides faster read and write speeds for devices that can utilize them.
"Memory Stick PRO Duo continues to be a key format among flash memory cards, and given the wide variety of devices now using Memory Stick PRO Duo, SanDisk should find a receptive market for these faster and higher-capacity cards," said Stephen Baker, analyst for NPD Techworld, a research company that follows the electronics industry. "Memory Stick-enabled devices are likely to grow substantially in the near term, offering SanDisk growing sales opportunities."
SanDisk Ultra II Memory Stick PRO Duo
The new SanDisk Ultra II Memory Stick PRO Duo family is being offered in three capacities: 512 megabytes (MB), 1GB and 2GB. Suggested retail prices are $119.99, $209.99 and $479.99. These cards have minimum write and read speeds of 10MB per second. The Ultra II line is designed for digital still cameras that have resolutions of 5 megapixels and higher, including "prosumer" cameras that average 6 to 8 megapixels. Users can photograph moving objects more easily, although image quality depends on the make, model and speed capabilities of each camera.
"Sony continues to introduce cameras, such as the Cyber-shot(R) DSC-F828 and the new DSC-V3, that can leverage the fast Ultra II Memory Stick PRO Duo cards," said Tanya Chuang, a SanDisk retail product marketing manager. "We expect to see more digital still cameras with higher resolutions that can benefit from performance flash memory cards. As one of the innovators in Memory Stick PRO Duo design, SanDisk strongly supports this popular format."
Memory Stick PRO Duo Standard
Designed for a wide range of electronic devices, many of them recently introduced by Sony and other companies, the SanDisk Memory Stick PRO Duo Standard line is ideal for memory-intensive use, and is offered in capacities of 128MB, 256MB, 512MB, 1GB and, now, 2GB. Products that have Memory Stick PRO Duo slots include portable game and multimedia systems (such as the new Sony PSP), mobile phones, digital camcorders, MP3 players, desktop PCs and laptops and printers. Suggested retail price of the new Standard 2GB Memory Stick PRO Duo is $359.99, which includes a Memory Stick adapter that makes it compatible with all Memory Stick PRO devices.
As the proliferation of the Memory Stick PRO Duo format continues, the cards are used not only to save digital still photos but also to capture MPEG4 video clips, video games, music, audio books and even computer-generated word and graphics files. "SanDisk offers the widest range of Memory Stick PRO Duo cards, giving consumers the option to choose the most appropriate capacities for their applications," said Susan Park, SanDisk retail product marketing manager for the Memory Stick line. "Moreover, the introduction of the 2GB PRO Duo card reflects SanDisk's commitment to Memory Stick PRO Duo and to our objective of staying on the leading edge of technology."
SanDisk also manufactures Memory Stick PRO in Standard, Ultra II, Extreme and Extreme III versions, with capacities of as high as 4GB. As the world's third most popular flash memory card format, Memory Stick is now licensed by 595 companies as of mid-January, according to memorystick.com, a trade organization.
SanDisk is the original inventor of flash storage cards and is the world's largest supplier of flash data storage card products, using its patented, high-density flash memory and controller technology. SanDisk is headquartered in Sunnyvale, Calif., and has operations worldwide, with more than half its sales outside the U.S.
For more information, please visit http://www.sandisk.com/
