In early 2010, Adata Technoloy launched a new corporate identity and branding strategy with an aim to further expand the company's presence and brand awareness in the international market place. The company also stepped up the hiring of talent with many years of industry experience, including YJ Choi who Digitimes recently interviewed.
Prior to joining Adata, Choi worked at Samsung Electronics as VP of engineering and technical marketing in the flash division. Choi officially joined Adata in 201 1 as Senior VP of Flash Storage Development and Marketing Division after having served for long years in the high-tech memory industry.
Choi spoke about Adata's product focus this year and development of its SSD offering, He also and also share his outlook for the industry.
Q: Last year at Computex, Adata highlighted products including power supplies, high-performance DDR3 modules, SATA 6Gbps SSDs and USB 3.0 flash drives. What will you be showcasing this year?
A: The products will be an extension of what we showecased last year, but we will highlight specific market segments including consumer mobile and high-end IT.
This year we will put the spotlight on the expansion of our USB 3.0 flash device lineup and consumer solid-state drives (SSD), and introduce an innovative new line of premium products such as Class 10 microSDHC / UHS-1 cards, ultra-fast 6Gbps SSD and USB-3 UFD cards.
Overall Adata intends to present its capability of building up complete product lines in the entry-level, mainstream and high-end segments, and that's the company's strategy - to expand its exposure in all segments and become a one-stop shop for memory solutions.
Q: Can you explain the company's global deployment? What are the strategies for different markets?
A: For different regions, we adjust our strategy to maximize our success in that market. In China, for example, Adata has strong channel distribution experience. The cultural and language similarities between Taiwan and China have provided us an advantage in collaborating with the local China-based distributors. But when it comes to the Europe and North America markets, we definitely need some adjustments to localize our products and business model to the country.
Last year Adata added new offices in India and the UK to reinforce our brand-name businesses in the local markets. We are striving to consolidate our position as one of the world's top memory module vendors.
Q: Can you talk about the company's current deployment of SSDs? Apart from SandForce, are you working with other controller suppliers?
A: We use SandForce in our premium product offerings, and also partner with several controller suppliers on solutions for consumer-oriented mobile applications.
Adata is targeting SSDs to sustain its future growth. The segment currently accounts for less than 10% of company revenues, and therefore has considerable room to grow in the future.
Q: We know more module companies are moving towards non-memory products to diversify and add value to their operations. How is Adata doing in this area?
A: Memory modules and other data storage solutions are still Adata's main product focus. Adata is dedicated to offering a complete lineup of DRAM modules and NAND flash devices including SSD as we think opportunities still lie ahead.
Every consumer electronics product is comprised of memory to store data and information and also usually support or require the use of an external memory device - usually the most portable type of memory device. This presents opportunities in multiple areas. And as the consumer electronics market will continue expanding, so Adata will continue adjusting to be able to respond to the huge demand.
As for DRAM modules, the business could be affected by a more saturated market for standard PCs but is also seeing demand created for cloud computing applications, such as servers. Meanwhile, there are still gamers, professionals and overclockers eager to improve their PC performance and reliability. Therefore Adata will certainly not be absent from the sector.
Q: Can you talk about Adata's product breakdown and the percentage that each business will contribute to total sales for 2011?
A: I cannot provide percentages at the moment. But it is certain that the ratio of the company's NAND flash products to total revenues will further increase in the second half of 2011.
Q: Can you share your views on the DRAM memory market? And also the market for NAND flash?
A: The DRAM market will continue on pace with the economic recovery in Europe and the US, while in Japan as we know that the March 11 earthquake and tsunami have pushed the country back into recession. The business will also very much depend on PC demand, which is weakening as a whole.
Concerns about component shortages resulting from the Japan earthquake did prop up DRAM prices but the rally appeared unsustainable. End-market demand actually plays a more important role in the outlook for the DRAM market.
You can say that the market will receive a boost in 2011 thanks to rising smartphone and tablet PC demand. But the emerging demand will need to be huge enough to offset falling demand for conventional PCs - still a dominant form of consumer DRAM memory.
As for NAND flash, I'm more concerned about the supply side. Chip producers are gearing to upgrade their production technologies to 2Xnm during 2011. Chip output will be affected during their process transitions and any sudden rise in demand could lead to an undersupply situation.
Q: Rival Kingston is eyeing the growth potential of eMMC-interface NAND memory devices and has stepped into the field. Is Adata looking to follow suit?
A: For dedicated module makers, entering the embedded memory market is a challenge because your major competitors are the world's leading chip suppliers with a strong R&D base, such as Samsung and Micron. It's like the market for processors, for example, being dominated only by a few large players due to the high technology threshold.
But we still need to prepare for possible changes in the current scenario. Adata is actually developing its on-chip memory solution, but will not enter the sector until we are 100% sure that our R&D and production capabilities are ready for it.