Despite numerous efforts by Sony, supremacy has slipped through the fingers for its Memory Stick format: now, the SD Memory Card format reigns supreme.
According to analyst firm The NPD Group, SD Memory Cards captured approximately 23% of US retail sales in January and February combined, overtaking Memory Stick media and - in less than three years - positioning itself as the emerging de facto industry standard. The format saw a whopping growth of over 400 percent in 2002, and the SD Card Association controlling the format says early indications point to strong growth continuing in 2003.
The SD Card Association was originally established in January 2000 by Matsushita Electric (Panasonic), SanDisk and Toshiba, and is now supported by a consortium of over 550 companies. Since its inception, the original SD Memory Card format has been built into a wide range of products including mobile phones, audio players, handhelds and video and digital still cameras. Meanwhile, two new formats have also been unveiled.
During 2002, several products were introduced based on the SD Association's standard for SD I/O peripherals, including digital cameras and FM radios. Having become popular with handheld manufacturers of all kinds, the SD I/O standard is currently often implemented as a supplement to the larger CompactFlash format, which has for some time been a de facto standard for I/O peripherals in handhelds based on the Pocket PC platform.
In March 2003, the SD Card Association introduced the miniSD Card as an alternative for products that require even smaller media, such as next generation mobile phones. MiniSD, which is based exclusively on existing SD Memory Card architecture, is a thumbnail-sized card that will operate seamlessly with existing products through a passive adaptor.
Including the 2003 introduction of a 1 GB SD Card, there were a total of 943 products worldwide that used SD Memory Cards as of March 4, 2003, according to numbers from the association itself.
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