Memory manufacturer Kingston aims to sell six million units in the Middle East in 2010, a 20 per cent increase on last year's five million, with the UAE and Egypt contributing most to the increase.

"This year we are expecting to sell four million flash units and two million Dram units," MEA Development Manager Antoine Harb told Emirates Business. "Last year, the total was five million units with a slight fall in the flash category compared with 2008. This was mainly because of the price fluctuation in flash memory, which affected our unit sales in 2009."

Both the desktop and notebook segments contribute to Kingston's sales. In the UAE, at least 60 per cent of business comes from notebooks while the Egyptian and Lebanese markets are dominated by desktops.

"In countries such as Egypt, desktops still contribute high figures as large government contracts are placed," added Harb. "We have just won a contract for 17,000 machines in Egypt and there is the advantage of a large population of 82 million," he said.

"In the UAE, the company has done well mainly because its distributors are based here, which makes the country a central hub for the region. In terms of market share, Kingston has 85 to 90 per cent in Egypt but only 15 per cent in the UAE. The re-export market contributes 30 per cent to UAE revenues," he added.

Harb said globally the country had not done well between 2007 and 2009, but in the Middle East the situation remained positive.

"Our global revenues in 2007 were $4.7 billion (Dh17.24bn), which fell to $4.1bn in 2008 and $4bn in 2009. But in the Middle East, revenues were $41 million in 2007, increasing to $53m in 2008 and $62m in 2009. The target for 2010 is to touch $100m," he said.

The company expects its annual growth rate in the Middle East to touch 20 per cent this year, up from 17.1 per cent in 2009.

In terms of technology, the company sees high potential for solid state drives (SSDs). An SSD is a data storage device that emulates a hard disk drive interface, thus easily replacing it in most applications. An SSD using Sram or Dram, instead of flash memory, is often called a RAM-drive and can replace a traditional hard disk drive.

Kingston launched this technology in the region at the end of 2009 and sold 100 units. This year it aims to sell 2,000 units in the Middle East by the end of 2010 and 40,000 units in Emea.

"The highest uptake for SSD has been in the UAE, Saudi Arabia, Kuwait and Qatar. The corporate segment has taken up this technology in the region. Greater production of NAND and the adoption of Windows 7 will make this technology a mainstream part of the PC storage portfolio for corporate and personal users in 2010."

Pricing is moving closer to the $100 barrier and Kingston expects that prices for SSDs in 2010 will continue to decline as vendors refine production processes. The lower pricing will result in capacity increases as costs come down.

The capacities of SSDs will continue to soar, with one-terabyte drives already on the horizon.