Sony Boosts Memory Stick Storage

Sony is planning to unveil long overdue higher-capacity versions of its Memory Stick memory card at the Consumer Electronics Show in Las Vegas in January.

The company will unveil 256MB, 512MB, and 1GB versions of the card under the name Memory Stick Pro at the show, according to a source familiar with Sony's plans. The cards, which are the product of development work between Sony and Sandisk, are expected to be unveiled during a keynote speech by Kunitake Ando, president of Sony, which is scheduled to take place at 8:30 a.m. on January 9, the first day of the event.

Officials from Sony and Sandisk declined to comment on their plans for CES.

Sticking Together

The two companies began working together in September 2001 with the goal of developing a higher performance and capacity successor to the existing Memory Stick format. As part of the deal, Sandisk also began selling under its own name Memory Stick cards supplied by Sony.

The next-generation cards to be announced at CES will represent the first capacity addition to the Memory Stick line-up in almost two years. Sony introduced a 128MB version of the card in the first quarter of 2001 and at about the same time a road-map on the company's MemoryStick.com web site was predicting a 256MB version of its card in early 2002 to be followed by a 512MB version in the middle of 2002.

Those cards never appeared much to the chagrin of users who complained in online forums about the apparent lack of progress on higher capacity cards. Such cards are of most interest to users of digital music players and high-end digital still cameras like Sony's DSC-F717. A 128MB stick provides enough room for just over 50 images from that camera leaving many of its users, who are largely enthusiast or semi-professional photographers, no option but to carry around several cards to accommodate a day's shooting.

The company has since removed the road map and replaced it with a message saying the road map is being updated. "We were more concerned about the quality [of the cards] than the capacity," said a company spokesperson of the road map's disappearance. The road-map did however predict a 1GB card in early 2003 so, assuming the cards go on sale within the first half of 2003, Sony will be back on track.

High-Capacity Competition

Since the company launched the 128MB card higher capacity versions of competing memory card formats have become available. Versions of Secure Digital and Compact Flash cards--which represent the main competition for Memory Stick--are available in capacities of 512MB and 1GB respectively and, at the Comdex Fall show in November, Pretec Electronics announced 1.5GB, 2GB, and 3GB Compact Flash cards.

Sony has also fallen short on shipments of the Memory Stick. In March 2001 as the company shipped its 10 millionth Memory Stick and predicted annual shipments would grow to 40 million in 2002 and 60 million in 2003 however the company's current estimate puts 2002 shipments at around 20 million and projects shipments next year will reach 35 million.

The shortfall, by half in 2002 and by almost the same amount for 2003, was as a result of lower than anticipated use in cellular telephone handsets, according to a company source. Sony had anticipated use of Memory Stick would be strong in cellular handsets however almost no handsets currently feature support for memory cards, both from Sony or other companies.