Fountain Valley’s Kingston Technology Co., the biggest maker of memory products for computers, managed to take market share away from its biggest rivals during what was one of the worst downturns the memory industry has ever seen, according to recent reports.
During the first half of 2009, Kingston claimed about 38% of the market for what’s called memory modules—circuit boards loaded with memory chips that speed the performance of computers and consumer electronics.
That’s according to In-Stat, a market research unit of Reed Elsevier Group PLC.
Kingston’s share of the market is up from 28% a year earlier.
The company’s closest competitor, Taiwan’s A-Data Technology Co., had 8% of the market.
Northern California’s Smart Modular Technologies Inc. came in third at 7.7%.
Gaining share is a fairly impressive feat for Kingston, which saw its sales take a hit and profits get squeezed in the past two years as prices for memory chips plunged.
Kingston’s growth has been crimped by a year-long surplus of memory chips made by big chipmakers in Asia and Europe.
The price declines were in part due to a fire sale on memory chips, as chipmakers rushed to get rid of their stockpiles in fear of even lower prices.
As the cost of these chips fell, so did prices—and profits—on Kingston’s products.
Kingston’s revenue fell 11% to $4 billion in 2008, the most recent data available from the privately held company.
The market as a whole for memory modules saw a sales decline of more than 30% during the first half of 2009, according to In-Stat.
Prices have seen a steady climb since midyear and continue to stabilize.
Some industry watchers predict a strong rebound in prices for so-called dynamic random access memory chips, or DRAM, this year.
Taiwan’s DRAMeXchange, which tracks memory chip prices, sees a shortage of chips in 2010.
“We think DRAM will likely face a serious shortage in the second half of 2010, triggered by hot PC sales,” the company said in a statement. “DRAM vendors will have a great opportunity to remain profitable for the whole year.”
Kingston likely saw a bounce in sales in 2009, although it hasn’t reported any figures yet.
Irvine Startup Deal
Irvine-based startup Quartics Inc., a maker of chips that help consumer electronics stream high-definition video, inked a product deal with a maker of DVD playing software.
Quartics hooked up with Taiwan’s CyberLink Corp. for a bundled product that allows high-definition video to be played on laptops and their smaller cousins, netbooks, without draining the battery.
Quartics said its chips improve both standard and high-definition video content from a variety of sources, including online streaming video, as well as Blu-ray discs and high definition movies and games stored on computers.
“We are excited at the benefits this offers consumers who can experience the same exceptional video quality on their portable and desktop devices that they have come to expect from their HD home theater displays,” said Sherjil Ahmed, president and founder of Quartics.
Quartics is aiming to sell its chips to companies that make PCs, digital TVs, set-top boxes and graphics cards—processors that help video and other graphics download faster.
Customers include PC maker Acer Inc., which owns Irvine’s Gateway Inc., Fountain Valley’s D-Link Systems Inc., NEC Corp., InFocus Corp. and ViewSonic Corp., which is just over the county line in Walnut.
Safi Qureshey stepped down as Quartics chief executive last year and now is chairman.
He’s best known as the founder of computer maker AST Research Inc., the defunct Irvine company that once ranked among the top computer makers before crashing hard in the mid-1990s. Samsung Electronics Co. bought AST in 1997 and later dissolved the business.
UCI App Class
The extension wing of the University of California, Irvine, is set to offer a course on how to develop software applications for Apple Inc.’s iPhone and iTouch.
It’s a fairly crowded market—since the inception of Apple’s online “app store” in 2007, the number of applications for sale has jumped from 500 to 100,000, according to the school.
The five-week course is set to examine the growing niche for developing apps and also gives practical skills for development.
The course is set to be taught by IBM Corp. veteran Ralf Brockhaus.
Bits and Pieces
Irvine-based Information Superbrand Inc., an Internet marketing startup, recently said entrepreneur Tal Golan is its chief executive. Golan previously was chief executive at Irvine’s Sendio Inc., a maker of filtering and anti-spam software for e-mail. He still sits on Sendio’s board … BridgeCo Inc., a maker of chips for home audio devices that quietly moved to Huntington Beach last year, moved its corporate headquarters to El Segundo. The company relocated to a smaller office in order to focus on expansion efforts abroad, according to Chief Executive Gene Sheridan. In December the company raised nearly $8 million in a venture round and has raised nearly $80 million to date … Newport Beach’s Jazz Semiconductor Inc., a unit of Israel’s Tower Semiconductor Ltd., landed a contract from a unit of General Dynamics Corp. to make chips for a program run by the Air Force. Financial terms weren’t disclosed.
