BARCELONA, Spain--(BUSINESS WIRE)--MOBILE WORLD CONGRESS – SanDisk Corporation (NASDAQ: SNDK), a global leader in flash storage solutions, today announced the new 128GB2 SanDisk Ultra® microSDXC™ UHS-I memory card, the world’s largest capacity microSD card. Smaller than the size of a fingernail, the new SanDisk Ultra microSDXC card enables consumers to use their phones and tablets as if storage limitations were never a concern, allowing users to capture thousands of songs and photos, and hours of video on a single, removable card.
“SanDisk’s high-performance 128GB SanDisk Ultra microSDXC memory card will reshape the way users interact with their devices,” said Stuart Robinson, director, Handset Component Technologies, Strategy Analytics. “Until now, consumers had to spread out their content between multiple products because the memory on those devices was not able to hold enough data in one place. This 128GB microSD card is going to be popular as the preferred removable storage option, giving users fast, secure and reliable access to their personal data archives.”
Ideal for Today’s Smartphone and Tablet Users
Designed for Android™ smartphones and tablets, the new SanDisk Ultra microSDXC card provides consumers the highest storage capacity available in a removable form factor. Ideal for shooting Full HD video and high-quality pictures, the 128GB SanDisk Ultra microSDXC card delivers twice the speed of ordinary microSD memory cards3 and offers the highest video recording performance available.
“The new SanDisk Ultra microSDXC card again demonstrates how SanDisk continues to expand the possibilities of storage so that consumers can benefit from our latest technology advancements,” said Susan Park, director, retail product marketing, SanDisk. “With 128GB of removable storage, consumers will enjoy the freedom to capture and save whatever they want on a smartphone or tablet, without worrying about running out of storage space.”
An Enhanced SanDisk Memory Zone App – Smarter Ways to Organize, Optimize, and Backup Android Smartphones
A new version of the SanDisk® Memory Zone app (available on the Google Play™ store in beta) lets users easily view, access, and backup all of their files from their phone’s memory in one convenient place. As a part of the SanDisk Memory Zone app, SanDisk is releasing OptiMem™, a new feature that allows Android users to enhance their phone’s internal memory by automatically transferring some of their old photos and videos to their microSD card4. OptiMem will continuously monitor the user’s mobile device memory levels, and inform them whenever the internal memory falls below a pre-defined threshold.
Technological Breakthrough
Compared to when the microSD card format was first launched in 2004 with 128MB of capacity, SanDisk has increased storage capacity of microSD cards 1,000 times over in less than a decade with the 128GB SanDisk Ultra microSDXC card. To enable 128GB of storage on a removable microSD card, SanDisk developed an innovative proprietary technique that allows for 16 memory die to be vertically stacked, each shaved to be thinner than a strand of hair.
“The technology used to design the 128GB Ultra microSDXC card is well in line with what mobile users expect, and demonstrates SanDisk’s commitment to mobility,” said Christopher Chute, research director, Worldwide Digital Imaging, IDC. “Being able to fit this much capacity into a microSD card smaller than a fingernail is a game changer, and expands the possibilities of what people can do with their mobile devices. The 128GB Ultra microSDXC card frees users from constant concerns around storage limitations.”
Pricing and Availability
The family of SanDisk Ultra microSD memory cards is available worldwide in capacities ranging from 8GB to 128GB with MSRPs of $29.99 to $199.99. In the U.S., the 128GB SanDisk Ultra microSDXC card is available exclusively at BestBuy.com and Amazon.com.
SanDisk at Mobile World Congress
SanDisk will be displaying the new 128GB SanDisk Ultra microSDXC memory card in the company’s Mobile World Congress booth, Stand #7A61, located in Hall 7. The company will also be displaying the new iNAND Extreme™ embedded flash drive (announced separately today).
About SanDisk
SanDisk Corporation (NASDAQ: SNDK), a Fortune 500 and S&P 500 company, is a global leader in flash storage solutions. For more than 25 years, SanDisk has expanded the possibilities of storage, providing trusted and innovative products that have transformed the electronics industry. Today, SanDisk’s quality, state-of-the-art solutions are at the heart of many of the world's largest data centers, and embedded in advanced smartphones, tablets and PCs. SanDisk’s consumer products are available at hundreds of thousands of retail stores worldwide. For more information, visit www.sandisk.com.
1 Approximations: Results and Full HD (1920x1080) video support will vary based on host device, file attributes and other factors. Compatible device required. See www.sandisk.com/HD
2 1GB=1,000,000,000 bytes. Actual user storage less.
3 Ordinary cards up to 5 MB/s write speed 1MB=1,000,000 bytes.
4 Download and installation required; see www.sandiskmemoryzone.com. The new OptiMem feature is available as a public beta in the Google Play store and will be generally available in early March. Please visit the Google Plus Community for more information https://plus.google.com/communities/117088614349521530063?hl=en&partnerid=gplp0
© 2014 SanDisk Corporation. All rights reserved. SanDisk and SanDisk Ultra are trademarks of SanDisk Corporation, registered in the United States and other countries. iNAND Extreme and OptiMem are trademarks of SanDisk Corporation. The microSD, microSDHC and microSDXC marks and logos are trademarks of SD-3C, LLC. Android and Google Play are trademarks of Google Inc.
This news release contains certain forward-looking statements, including expectations for markets, customers and new products that are based on our current expectations and involve numerous risks and uncertainties that may cause these forward-looking statements to be inaccurate. Risks that may cause these forward-looking statements to be inaccurate include among others: the market demand for our products may grow more slowly than our expectations or our products may not be available in the capacities or at the prices that we expect or perform as expected, or the other risks detailed from time-to-time in our Securities and Exchange Commission filings and reports, including, but not limited to, our most recent annual report on Form 10-K. We do not intend to update the information contained in this news release.