e.Digital Corporation (fka EDIG)

[Tinroad]

OT: Study shows flash memory, flexible disk, and micro-drives steer 12% of market in 2002
Business Wire (June 8, 2001)
http://pd.pennnet.com/News/Display_News_Story.cfm?Section=WireNews&SubSection=INDUS&NewsID=1...

SANTA BARBARA, Calif., Jun 8, 2001 (BUSINESS WIRE) -- The non-conventional storage markets are expected to account for up to 12 percent of the disk drive unit volume of 271 million units in 2002 (Table 1); and approximately 20 percent of the unit volume by 2006.

The total unit demand for storage for new applications, including flash memory, flexible disk drives, and micro-drives will exceed 200 million units by 2004.

The expected growth of potential new consumer and mobile products that will use storage devices will double between 2000 and 2004. Digital cell phones that dominate this field are also expected to double in unit growth from 2000 to 2004.

Table 2 gives projections for storage product unit growth over the next four years, including HDDs, FDDs, optical drives, tape and flash memory. While floppies and tape are expected to decline and optical memory has slight growth, flash memory and disk drives are expected to show significant growth.

A new report from Peripheral Research Corp. on Data Storage for Entertainment and Consumer Electronics focuses on storage for entertainment and consumer electronics applications. It covers digital content creation, content distribution, and content receiving data storage requirements. Markets covered will include home consumer electronics, mobile consumer electronics, as well as digital video and audio production and distribution.

Data storage products covered in this report include:
-- Flexible Disk Drives.
-- Hard Disk Drives for Consumer Applications.
-- Micro Drives and smaller.
-- Optical Recording Formats.
-- Data Play Optical Drives.
-- Some Solid State devices such as Compact Flash and other

removable Flash memory formats.

The report profiles each of the key markets, the storage products attractive to those markets, the important specifications for storage, as well as profiles of the companies and market forecasts.

Table 1

Disk Drive Forecast By Segment (Units in Millions)
Segment 2000 2001 2002 2003 2004
P.C. Systems 112.4 111.6 112.0 115.0 120.0
RAID/Server Systems 75.0 96.4 125.0 152.0 178.6
New Apps/Entertain. 8.0 19.0 38.6 47.7 71.1
Totals 195.4 227.0 275.6 314.7 369.1

Table 2

Worldwide Storage Device Forecast (Units in Millions)
Drive Type 1999 2000 2001 2002 2003
Rigid Disk Drive 175.7 205.3 227.4 252.6 277.5
Optical Drives 122.7 133.8 144.2 154.5 158.2
Tape Drives 4.5 4.6 4.6 4.4 3.9
Flexible Drives 139.0 146.6 152.5 153.9 145.0
Totals 441.9 490.3 528.7 565.4 584.6

CONTACT: Peripheral Research Corp., Santa Barbara
Dennis Waid, 805/563-9720
[e-mail]
or
Coughlin Associates
Tom Coughlin, 408/978-8184
[e-mail]