SanDisk Celebrates Japan Milestones

World-Class Fabs Help Fuel Today’s Smart Digital Lifestyle For Consumers and Businesses Globally

TOKYO--(BUSINESS WIRE)--SanDisk Corporation (NASDAQ: SNDK), a global leader in flash memory storage solutions, today announced it is celebrating its tenth anniversary of participation in joint venture fab operations in Yokkaichi, Japan, and its twentieth anniversary of sales activities in the country.

“I am delighted to commemorate these milestones in Japan, and to recognize the countless contributions made by our employees that have enabled this success”

Over the past decade, SanDisk has invested more than $7 billion dollars in state-of-the-art silicon manufacturing resulting in some of the world’s most advanced wafer production facilities. Not only does this make SanDisk one of Japan’s largest foreign investors, but these facilities produce leading-edge NAND flash memory that is helping fuel the smart digital lifestyle for people and companies on a global scale.

Together with its strategic joint venture partner Toshiba, SanDisk has been driving tremendous innovations in NAND flash memory that have enabled consumer electronics devices such as tablets, smartphones, and portable personal storage devices, as well as solid-state drives (SSDs) for ultra thin-and-light computers and the enterprise.

“Flash memory has become one of the most important technologies of the 20th and early 21st centuries,” said industry analyst Tim Bajarin of Creative Strategies. “It revolutionized the photography industry. It revolutionized the PC and the mobile industries. And it’s on track to revolutionize the enterprise going forward. SanDisk’s strategy and investments in Japan have played a critical role in advancing technologies we take for granted today, and I fully expect their leadership will be a key part of the technology landscape for many years to come.”

“On behalf of the four thousand SanDisk employees, and our customers and partners worldwide, I am pleased to mark this important milestone of two successful decades in Japan,” said Sanjay Mehrotra, SanDisk president and CEO. “Japan has provided a solid foundation for SanDisk’s success. Our joint venture with Toshiba is one of the most successful and long lasting in the semiconductor industry, and together, we are helping consumers and businesses around the world benefit from leading-edge flash solutions.”

“SanDisk and Toshiba have enjoyed a long-term partnership and it is our pleasure to celebrate this milestone,” said Yasuo Naruke, corporate vice president and vice president responsible for memories at Toshiba's Semiconductor & Storage Products Company. “Our joint venture has achieved great success for both companies and for the entire industry. We, as the flash memory inventor, look forward to continuing our relationship with SanDisk to bring innovative solutions to market.”

“Over the last decade, the evolution and proliferation of flash memory has been the foundation for the evolution in digital imaging, music and mobile computing,” according to Joseph Unsworth, research vice president at Gartner. “As we look at today and the future, flash memory is again playing a fundamental role in the evolution of personal and cloud computing while transforming data center storage architectures.”

“I am delighted to commemorate these milestones in Japan, and to recognize the countless contributions made by our employees that have enabled this success,” said Atsuyoshi Koike, SanDisk’s senior vice president of technology and fab operations, and president of SanDisk Japan Limited.

About SanDisk

SanDisk Corporation (NASDAQ: SNDK) is a global leader in flash memory storage solutions, from research and development, product design and manufacturing to branding and distribution for OEM and retail channels. Since 1988, SanDisk’s innovations in flash memory and storage system technologies have provided customers with new and transformational digital experiences. SanDisk’s diverse product portfolio includes flash memory cards and embedded solutions used in smart phones, tablets, digital cameras, camcorders, digital media players and other consumer electronic devices, as well as USB flash drives and solid-state drives (SSD) for the computing market. SanDisk’s products are used by consumers and enterprise customers around the world.

SanDisk is a Silicon Valley-based S&P 500 and Fortune 500 company, with more than half its sales outside the United States. For more information, visit www.sandisk.com.

© 2012 SanDisk Corporation. All rights reserved. SanDisk is a trademark of SanDisk Corporation, registered in the United States and other countries. Other brand names mentioned herein are for identification purposes only and may be the trademarks of their respective holder(s).

This press release contains certain forward-looking statements, including expectations for markets and products that are based on our current expectations and involve numerous risks and uncertainties that may cause these forward-looking statements to be inaccurate. Risks that may cause these forward-looking statements to be inaccurate include among others: the market demand for our products may grow more slowly than our expectations or the other risks detailed from time-to-time in our Securities and Exchange Commission filings and reports, including, but not limited to, our most recent annual report on Form 10-K and our subsequent quarterly reports on Form 10-Q. We do not intend to update the information contained in this press release.