Western Digital and Kioxia under one roof. Brand merger forced by the situation on the components market

The network received information that Western Digital and Kioxia sat down to talk about a potential merger. It is worth mentioning that this is another approach to this topic. The first mentions of the merger hit the network in 2021, but the operation did not come to fruition. The deteriorating situation on the market is supposed to be the reason for re-starting talks. According to information, the talks are at an advanced level.

Western Digital and Kioxia are back in merger talks. According to information, talks are at an advanced level.

Western Digital factory affected by a major failure. A total of 6.5 exbytes of memory will not go to stores

If these companies merged, they would jointly control 1/3 of the NAND memory market, which in turn would put them on par with Samsung. Due to the nature of NAND memories (they do not require power to store data), they are now used in smartphones, televisions, data centers and interactive bulletin boards. Western Digital announced last June that it was looking at strategic alternatives, including separating from the “rest” of its flash memory division.

Western Digital Black SN850 – PCIe 4.0 SSD media with heatsink meets Sony requirements for compatibility with PlayStation 5

The division of ownership, should the merger take place, has not yet been determined, we will have to wait a little longer for the official position of these companies. According to information, Western Digital would separate its NAND chip division and merge it with Kioksia. The newly created company would be listed in the United States and Japan. The reasons why this merger did not happen sooner are unknown, but it is speculated that the companies’ relationship soured when Western Digital tried to acquire Kioxia in 2021. Today, there is probably no bad blood between the two companies, and they even managed to open a factory together at the beginning of last year.

Source: Guru3D, Reuters, Bloomberg