Kingston Technology has announced that its SSD business continues to grow at a strong rate following an astounding 2019. The world leader in memory products and technology solutions broadened its SSD portfolio with three new client SSDs, five data center-specific drives ― two of which achieved VMware Ready status ― and launched its first U.2 NVMe PCIe solution. SSD demand through Q1 2020 has continued to grow in the client, enterprise and OEM sectors, and Kingston rises to meet it continuing from 2019.
Forward Insights and TRENDFOCUS, both analyst research companies, showed Kingston in a strong leadership position from 2019 market share data. Forward Insights ranked Kingston in first place in worldwide channel SSD shipments – 18.3% market share, ahead of Western Digital and Samsung (16.5%, 15.1% respectively). Forward Insights reports that almost 120 million SSDs were shipped in the channel in 2019.
“Demand in the channel remained very high as overall shipments increased 36 percent from 2018.”
“Kingston’s competitive product portfolio and extensive distribution enabled it to outgrow the market by a factor of two.”
Gregory Wong, president and principal analyst, Forward Insights
Kingston is placed as third-largest SSD supplier globally by TRENDFOCUS at 10.4% market share, behind Samsung and Western Digital. 2019 saw 276 million SSDs shipped worldwide, a 36% increase year over year according to the analyst. NAND consumption remained high as SSD shipments continued to surge in both units and average capacities throughout the year.
“Favorable pricing for a good portion of 2019 helped drive demand in the client space, enabling increased SSD-attach rates from the OEMs.”
“Moving forward through the rest of 2020, SSD-attach rates in PCs will remain strong, with continued strong demand for SATA SSD in various data center deployments, as well as continued increases with Hyperscale buildouts for PCIe.”
Don Jeanette, vice president, TRENDFOCUS
Kingston meanwhile, made the following statement:
“The 2019 research findings from both analyst firms validate Kingston’s growing presence and position in the SSD market.”
“We continue to solidify our presence in the client space with strong SATA offerings as well as distinct NVMe solutions optimized for notebooks and desktops. In addition to the growth in OEM and partner manufacturing, we are proud to deliver several new enterprise solutions with predictable performance and greater dependability for a variety of applications and host environments.”