SanDisk's unique yatra in the memory lanes!

SanDisk Corporation is a global leader in flash memory cards and is known for its designs and manufactures of flash memory card products that include flash memory cards for mobile phones, digital cameras and camcorders; digital audio/video players; USB flash drives for consumers and the enterprise; embedded memory for mobile devices; and solid state drives for computers. Sandisk is currently present in US; Europe: France, Germany, Ireland, Scotland, Spain and Sweden; Asia-pacific: Australia, China, India and Japan and Israel.

Manisha Sood, Country MANAGER, India and SAARC SanDisk talks exclusively to Adgully on sandisk's new product called Sandisk Memory Yatra.

"Sandisk Memory Yatra" is a unique first of its kind initiative to engage with the consumers of tier 2 and 3 cities in India, educating them on the "need and importance" of flash memory to explore their digital gadgets to the fullest potential and demonstrate the entire product range of Sandisk. This yatra began in Jaipur around the festival of Holi and moved to Chandigarh during Baisakhi, then to Kerala during Onam and to Pune and Hyderabad to optimize on Ganesh Chaturthi. Furthermore, this yatra will move forward to Ahmadabad during the festival of Navratras, then Lucknow, Varanasi, Kanpur during one of the biggest festival of India: - Diwali and then and conclude in Guwahati around Christmas."

"One of the biggest highlights of this yatra is the Sandisk memory canter which is designed to engage and excite the consumers. The mobile canter has a signature wall and memory wall setup for the product demo. The inside of the canter is divided into 3 zones: USB, mobile and imaging. The Memory Yatra Sandisk rolls out several consumer engagement activities wherein consumers get a chance to win exciting prizes and other goodies from Sandisk. Additionally, the Memory Yatra is always weaved into local festivals giving Sandisk a chance to celebrate the occasions with the local consumers while giving them the opportunity to explore their digital gadgets," she further added.

According to Sood, India has a huge market for storage solutions segment and has been witnessing rapid adoption of consumer electronics. According to the Indian semiconductor association (ISA)-frost & Sullivan report update 2008-10, the total revenues of the Indian semiconductor market (total market-tm) are poised to grow from USD 5.9 billion in 2008 to USD 7.59 billion in 2010 at a compounded annual growth rate (CAGR) of 13.4 per cent. These figures clearly depict the potential for the flash memory in the domain. "Our growth is directly proportional to the growth of the four different product categories we operate in: mobile phone market, camera market, USB flash market and computing segment. Mobile memory card has seen growth to a large extent in 2009 in India. Hence, the largest selling product in the Sandisk portfolio in India is the microSD card due to mobile phones having an attach rate of 34 percent (as per the GFK GSM report Sep 2009)," Sood explained.

"There is lot of momentum in the flash memory industry today and Sandisk is well positioned to capitalise on the storage needs of these large, fast paced markets. With the growing amount of digital data and increased need for mobility in our daily lives, the demand for portable storage devices has been continuously on the rise. People want to store a lot of data on their mobile phones, including movies, music, photos, games and other memory-hungry content. Smartphones are actually becoming increasingly powerful handheld computers. Flash memory is perfect for use in mobile phones due to its small size and durability," she says

As a pioneer in flash memory and devices, Sandisk is constantly evolving and creating new and innovative devices. Sood said, "For example, Sandisk is developing a three-dimensional semiconductor chip as the next generation of storage. This is because Sandisk feels more people will buy more devices and demand more storage."

Another innovation Sandisk plans to leverage upon is cloud computing, where it may provide memory cards that behave like a cloudlet in the consumer's pocket. "This is because Sandisk has bundled innovative features like power core controller and better algorithms in its product lines to boost performance and capture the best shots," Sood added.

Talking about the latest products at Sandisk, Sood commented, "Sandisk® cruzer® blade„¢ USB flash drive has come out with two new exciting colors - the blue and the sophisticated white. This USB flash drive measures 41.5 x 17.6 x 7.4 mm and weighs just 2.5 grams, creating a tiny footprint that can fit in almost any pocket. Despite its small size, the drive packs big storage at great value. It ranges from 2 gigabytes (GB) to16gb at a price from MRP of Rs. 699/- (2 GB) to Rs. 2999/- (16GB). Additionally, Sandisk has recently launched the world's highest-capacity removable memory card for mobile phones ' the 32 gigabyte (GB) Sandisk MICROSDHC„¢ card. The new MICROSDHC card offers consumers an unprecedented level of freedom and flexibility in how the consumers store, send and enjoy digital content. The highly-versatile 32 GB Sandisk MICROSDHC card delivers immediate memory expansion that lets consumers enjoy the storage-intensive features of their advanced handsets."

Technology has made all the options related to storing data very exciting to the common man. Soon according to certain websites, there will be a day when we are able to fit 100 GB onto a postage stamp. | By Janees Antoo [janees(at)adgully.com]