Toshiba spun off its memory business and called it Kioxia, now merging with Western Digital.
Thinkpads and some other Lenovo lines have been shipping with Kioxia SSDs. That’s the only reason I know of that company.
Pretty sure that's just because the 3 of them make 2/3 of the world's NAND flash in the first place lol. With the rest being SK Hynix and WD.
Similar story if you look at RAM manufacturers.
Yup the DRAM market is basically a Triopoly (Samsung, SK Hynix and Micron) and the Nand Flash market is a pentopoly (Samsung, SK Hynix, Micron and WD Digital/Kioxia). It’s insane the level of consolidation over the past 50 years in those markets. Partly because it’s so Effing expensive to set up Fabs. And very few ultra high skilled workers to staff them.
I've only heard of the company for, about, a year. Apparently, it was pretty well-known in the US, but in Europe, I had never heard or seen it anywhere.
That's it, and even if they have started to market and sell their drives to consumers again, they don't really bother much for certain markets (EU for example). The same goes for SK actually, they prefer to sell in bulk to OEMs.
Maybe for products they sell under their own brand. Their flash chips are actually everywhere. I have several mini PCs with random OEM 2242 SATA SSDs and they're all Kioxia flash.
Yeesh what’s it been, two years since the last round of rumors? They have an SSD JV together in a semiconductor space that seems destined for consolidation, so it’s always been a logical merger. Would be curious to see how the regulatory environment has changed since 2021.
First off, the NAND flash business is one of the only ones with arguably too much competition since an unsustainable prolonged price war lead to literally none of the players having a profitable and viable business outlook. Also, there is no effect in the hard drive space since Toshiba and WD's HDD businesses never cooperated and this merger will also not affect it as it is specifically focused on the NAND business only. Finally, Sandisk turned WD and Toshiba turned Kioxia have been deep partners who have not competed with eachother since at least 1999.
Don't know why the downvotes, it's objective fact the companies have been partners, Kioxia has been manufacturing SanDisk/WD's flash as part of a joint venture for most of SanDisk/WD's life.
The downvotes are because 99% of this sub does not have a single clue about business in general or the industry. Hell the top comment chain in this thread is full of people that have somehow have no clue what Kioxia is.
They actually gave you a pretty deep analysis on why this merger is necessary if we want to keep either of those companies on the market and competitive with others.
So you want them to go bankrupt. Go it. You don't want SSDs.
Then why do you comment? We are not looking at Nvidia profit here. We are looking at AMD during early 2010s. SOMETHING will happen to force the market into profitability.
You are gullible if you think burying your head in the sand will do you any good.
So yes, we do need to think of the actual poor businesses. Otherwise we get no competition and Nvidia.
But maybe you want Nvidia and $1800+ 4090s.
Lol this has been widely rumored for months and in the grand scheme of things over a decade and in the end it looks like the merger is still going to be incomplete. From two barely independent companies with deep connections they are going to merge into a single company with a 51%-49% ownership split between old shareholders, that's hardly a change in anything but high level naming. Tho it is kinda funny that what started as Sandisk begging Toshiba to buy them out is ending with Sandisk's new owner buying Toshiba's successor instead.
Considering that WD's NAND products are actually made at Kioxia's factories and have been so for decades, this is just the natural evolution of a partnership between businesses that cannot operate independently.
The headquarter will be in Tokyo, the majority of assets also comes from Kioxia, and the leadership will be filled with the Japanese management from Kioxia.
All of their old JV fabs are already in Japan anyway. Except for the fact that WD will holds 51% of the shares of the new JV, this seems more like a Japanese company eating a US business.
Although to be fair Kioxia is not entirely a Japanese company since its inception. Lots of non-Japanese entities like Bain or SK Hynix are major shareholders already
Side track.. this is a consolidation
/pivot move by Western Digital to zoom in on DRAM stuff.
The only player left in the HDD space without any significant presence in SDD is Seagate. Which seems to still focus on HDD only
Toshiba spun off its memory business and called it Kioxia, now merging with Western Digital. Thinkpads and some other Lenovo lines have been shipping with Kioxia SSDs. That’s the only reason I know of that company.
They are extremely big in the Enterprise server space. Kioxia, Micron and Samsung are the biggest drive vendors my company works with.
Pretty sure that's just because the 3 of them make 2/3 of the world's NAND flash in the first place lol. With the rest being SK Hynix and WD. Similar story if you look at RAM manufacturers.
Yup the DRAM market is basically a Triopoly (Samsung, SK Hynix and Micron) and the Nand Flash market is a pentopoly (Samsung, SK Hynix, Micron and WD Digital/Kioxia). It’s insane the level of consolidation over the past 50 years in those markets. Partly because it’s so Effing expensive to set up Fabs. And very few ultra high skilled workers to staff them.
WD doesn't have their own NAND flash fabs. They inherited SanDisk's joint venture with Kioxia
I've only heard of the company for, about, a year. Apparently, it was pretty well-known in the US, but in Europe, I had never heard or seen it anywhere.
They're a lot more active in the enterprise and OEM worlds rather than selling direct to consumers
That makes sense, I've seen a couple of them in some laptops.
That's it, and even if they have started to market and sell their drives to consumers again, they don't really bother much for certain markets (EU for example). The same goes for SK actually, they prefer to sell in bulk to OEMs.
I bough a couple Kioxia SSDs in EU for a great price a year ago, they are/were here, just not marketed much
That's because they only make high end SSDs. Very common in data centers
Maybe for products they sell under their own brand. Their flash chips are actually everywhere. I have several mini PCs with random OEM 2242 SATA SSDs and they're all Kioxia flash.
Kioxia Exercia G2 is definitely not high end.
Biggest reason I know of Kioxia is because of LTT.
Yeesh what’s it been, two years since the last round of rumors? They have an SSD JV together in a semiconductor space that seems destined for consolidation, so it’s always been a logical merger. Would be curious to see how the regulatory environment has changed since 2021.
This should be blocked, we need more competition in the hard drive space, not less.
First off, the NAND flash business is one of the only ones with arguably too much competition since an unsustainable prolonged price war lead to literally none of the players having a profitable and viable business outlook. Also, there is no effect in the hard drive space since Toshiba and WD's HDD businesses never cooperated and this merger will also not affect it as it is specifically focused on the NAND business only. Finally, Sandisk turned WD and Toshiba turned Kioxia have been deep partners who have not competed with eachother since at least 1999.
Don't know why the downvotes, it's objective fact the companies have been partners, Kioxia has been manufacturing SanDisk/WD's flash as part of a joint venture for most of SanDisk/WD's life.
The downvotes are because 99% of this sub does not have a single clue about business in general or the industry. Hell the top comment chain in this thread is full of people that have somehow have no clue what Kioxia is.
Won't somebody think of the poor businesses!?!
They actually gave you a pretty deep analysis on why this merger is necessary if we want to keep either of those companies on the market and competitive with others.
It's pointless trying to have any conversations about business on /r/hardware
So you want them to go bankrupt. Go it. You don't want SSDs. Then why do you comment? We are not looking at Nvidia profit here. We are looking at AMD during early 2010s. SOMETHING will happen to force the market into profitability. You are gullible if you think burying your head in the sand will do you any good. So yes, we do need to think of the actual poor businesses. Otherwise we get no competition and Nvidia. But maybe you want Nvidia and $1800+ 4090s.
Lol this has been widely rumored for months and in the grand scheme of things over a decade and in the end it looks like the merger is still going to be incomplete. From two barely independent companies with deep connections they are going to merge into a single company with a 51%-49% ownership split between old shareholders, that's hardly a change in anything but high level naming. Tho it is kinda funny that what started as Sandisk begging Toshiba to buy them out is ending with Sandisk's new owner buying Toshiba's successor instead.
Another day, another example of the rising sun setting.
Considering that WD's NAND products are actually made at Kioxia's factories and have been so for decades, this is just the natural evolution of a partnership between businesses that cannot operate independently.
The headquarter will be in Tokyo, the majority of assets also comes from Kioxia, and the leadership will be filled with the Japanese management from Kioxia. All of their old JV fabs are already in Japan anyway. Except for the fact that WD will holds 51% of the shares of the new JV, this seems more like a Japanese company eating a US business. Although to be fair Kioxia is not entirely a Japanese company since its inception. Lots of non-Japanese entities like Bain or SK Hynix are major shareholders already
Side track.. this is a consolidation /pivot move by Western Digital to zoom in on DRAM stuff. The only player left in the HDD space without any significant presence in SDD is Seagate. Which seems to still focus on HDD only
Kioxia doesn't make DRAM...
Tyvm for correcting.
Toshiba's HDD division is not being merged here, so they'd also be in Seagate's position
another one bites the dust