As the world’s largest independent memory manufacturer, Kingston offers a variety of services such as memory modules, NAND flash products, technology solutions and supply chain management. For 17 consecutive years, Kingston has stood firm as the No. 1 brand for memory modules across markets. Kingston has consistently safeguarded people’s precious memories for 33 years with the highest quality standards. In an interaction with Manoj Jha, Editor, SmartStateIndia, Tejashwar Singh, India Sales Head, Kingston Technology explains the trend which driving the SSD market in India and other interesting facts,
How SSD segment is evolving in India?
As we move towards a more digital world where we like things to be faster than usual, storage solutions across industries will play an important role in keeping the technological revolution ticking.
Consumers are looking for higher productivity from their PCs and the most critical device that can give a significant performance boost is an internal SSD. Moreover, gaming has become a mainstream application and gaming PCs based on SSDs provide the right experience
The biggest change is being seen in India in the data storage landscape which continues to evolve. Most of the consumers are vying for budget-friendly and effective solutions to improve the performance of their computers. Replacing the hard drive with a solid-state drive (SSD) is one of the easiest and quickest ways to enhance the PC performance to the next level. Managing and storing data today is redefining the way we work and play today.
Kingston Technology has been the forerunner of SSD segment in the world. We use NAND flash memory with an endurance rating designed for the workload of an SSD. This allows Kingston to offer a variety of SSDs for an application at a competitive price point. Riding on this trend, Kingston is the most preferred brand in the Indian market and well poised in the market due to extensive SSD product portfolio and aggressive pricing. We enjoy 65% YoY growth in the segment while the SSD category in India grew at over 50%. This year we have seen explosive growth, and robust demand for the NVMe SSDs and our Q3 2020 monthly average increase is about 7X. Our channel partners have received great response for our key SSD products like Kingston A400 2.5 SATA, Kingston A400 M.2, Kingston KC600 2.5 SATA, Kingston A2000 NVMe SSD and Kingston KC2500 NVMe SSD.
What trends driving the SSD market in India with respect to gaming, education and work from home (WFH)?
Working from home has become a new norm for most of us and this phenomenon is going to go for a while. With most of us working from home, studying online or gaming for hours, we are using our PCs for several hours and our lives quite literally depend on them. Thus, making it extremely crucial to have a PC that helps you work or play without any hassle. However, with tight budgets during these unprecedented times, people and businesses are looking at budget-friendly and effective solutions to improved performance.
At Kingston, we are continuously introducing customized and purpose-built solutions based on the latest technology for our consumers. We have realized that data is redefining our identity.
Some of our products have been optimized for the work from home or education from home or extreme gaming needs of our users, and we have come up with excellent innovations basis the same. For instance- our product KC600 is optimized for functional system responsiveness with incredible boot, loading and transfer times. It supports a full-security suite that includes AES-XTS 256-bit hardware-based encryption, TCG Opal 2.0 and eDrive, allowing users to protect and secure their data. All this makes it really good for a PC upgrade for WFH.
Similarly, our A2000 is an affordable NVMe storage solution with impressive read / write speeds up to 2,200 / 2,000MB/s1, respectively, thus delivering 3x the performance of a SATA SSD. It is ideal for entry-level users and DIY system builders who appreciate responsiveness and ultra-fast loading times.
For extreme gamers, we have KC2500 which is the next generation M.2 NVMe PCIe SSD range for high-performance computing (HPC) systems. These SSDs deliver high-speed performance as it is using the latest Gen 3.0 x 4 controller and 96-layer 3D TLC NAND-making it really compelling for all the gaming enthusiasts. Kingston’s Data Centre SSD range for enterprise customers looking for consistent application performance, stringent quality of service requirements and all-around reliability. Explain in detail?
Storage protocols are improving as organizations invest in the ongoing digital transformation that is happening in the data-heavy enterprise environment. The new storage protocol empowers data centers and enterprise environments to fully take advantage of high-performance flash memory. With sustained read capabilities and the ability to serve over 550MB/second, per drive, arrays built on Kingston Data Center SSDs can provide ample performance to keep up with even the largest demands. Traditional storage implementations were straining to keep up with soaring capacity demands.
When storage is measured by the petabyte, keeping those arrays online and operating efficiently requires a large amount of power. Green initiatives are pushing organizations to explore new ways to cut environmental impact. Storage arrays built using Kingston Data Center SSDs consume a fraction of the power of their spinning disk counterparts. Less power means lower operating costs, potentially saving hundreds, if not thousands of dollars per month, depending on the size of your arrays.
When it comes to the enterprise customers, reliability and quality is sacrosanct. A minor slump in the performance of the servers might lead to a huge loss. We at Kingston commit to using highest quality components, along with 100% testing, and multi-year warranty on our Data Center SSD products.
What are the key differentiators for Kingston in India when compared with other vendors operating in the similar market scenario?
Since 1987, Kingston has been known for the highest quality memory products and storage solutions available. We recognise the important role memory as well as storage plays in computing productivity and take the necessary steps to guarantee a reliable product to our discerning users.
We score over our competitors in terms of superior quality, where the company qualifies all components and tests all products at every stage of the production process. In addition, all products guarantee compatibility where there is a customization in memory and 100% compatibility. The company also focuses on the convenience of the consumer and provides a complete range of memory and storage solutions at competitive prices for all kinds of systems. Kingston Technology as a company has demonstrated stability since 1987, the year of its establishment, and has grown to be the largest memory and storage products manufacturer with an unmatched combination of reliability and warranty. The company commits to using the highest quality components, along with 100% testing, and offers lifetime warranty on all memory modules as well as Flash cards and multi-year warranties on SSD Drives and USB Flash drives.
What kind of growth are you expecting from India and how will this growth be achieved in SSD space?
India has been a growth driver for storage and is one of the top five markets for Kingston across all our APAC markets. We are consistently working towards coming up with compelling SSD solutions and connecting with our end consumers with excellent propositions in the Indian market. We live in one of the most data consuming countries and that speaks volumes about the potential that this market offers. SSD segment– is on the rise. We have brought this technology into the country for quite some time and has become quite mainstream with more data centers, enterprises and even small businesses investing in it. Business and end users have seen a phenomenal increase in productivity and ROI.
Backed by our robust partner network in India, we continue to address the burgeoning demands of our consumers for smart and secure data management solutions by bringing to market innovative technologies that will meet evolving business and consumer needs.
For our SSD segment, we would continue to focus on traditional channel which drives the majority of business for us. We are channel friendly company and we do support MD, Resellers and retail partners available in the metro cities, tier II and tier III cities. Additionally, we are also focusing on our online business where we have noticed good response due to the inclination of consumer shopping more online.
