DRAMAtic success
The DRAM market may have taken a beating this past year, but according to Kingston, 2008 was "a very good year" for the firm. Kingston told press at a company summit today that it was not only financially secure - a boast almost none of its competitors can make - but also financially strong, having made over $4 billion in revenue last year alone.
The company - founded back in 1987 by friends John Tu and David Sun, and which remains a privately held business with no shareholders, or board of directors to this day - said it does so well because of its strong brand, focus on memory modules and Flash products, and its quality manufacturing partnerships and testing.
2008, Kingston reps told us, was the firm's "second best revenue year ever," with "the most total worldwide shipments of DRAM and flash, the most DRAM unit shipments ever, most ValueRAM units shipped and most branded units shipped." The firm even claims to deliver over one million units of product per day, distributed out over 110 countries in over 30,000 locations worldwide.
Kingston also says it had its best ever year for Flash revenue in 2008, up 7.5 per cent on 2007, and best USB drive revenue, which apparently shot up by 33 per cent in 2008. Flash unit shipments were reportedly up 60 per cent, whilst card shipments were touted as being 36 per cent higher than the previous year, with USB drive shipments seeing a whopping 91 per cent increase too.