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Western Digital and Kioxia merger talks are nearing the finish line

  • May 16, 2023
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Western Digital wants to merge with Kioxia. Despite the current slump in memory sales, talks about it are gaining momentum. The storage specialist Western Digital wants to merge

Western Digital and Kioxia merger talks are nearing the finish line

Western Digital wants to merge with Kioxia. Despite the current slump in memory sales, talks about it are gaining momentum.

The storage specialist Western Digital wants to merge with Kioxia. The Japanese memory chip specialist has seen better years, thanks in part to a temporary slowdown in the memory market. WD itself is also active in this market and is also feeling the decline. However, this does not stop the two parties, on the contrary. Reuters knows the talks are gaining momentum towards the goal.

New company

The current talks should specify the path of a merger. Under the existing plan, a new company would be 43 percent owned by Kioxia and 37 percent owned by Western Digital. The rest goes to the existing shareholders of both companies.

WD and Kioxia hope the merger will bring economies of scale that will allow the new company to be more competitive in the storage market. Together, WD and Kioxia would control a third of the total NAND flash market, putting it on par with Samsung.

What about the hard drives?

The talks appear to be primarily about the Flash activities of Western Digital, which is one of the two major manufacturers of hard drives along with Seagate. It doesn’t seem illogical that the HDD part and the flash part were separated before a merger with Kioxia. This allows the new company to focus on the flash market, which is distinct from the HDD market.

None of the parties involved has officially commented on this. Kioxia and WD previously went to a coffee shop together, but merger talks stalled in 2021. The two companies have been back together since January. If the two go to bed together, it will no doubt attract the attention of many international competition authorities.

Source: IT Daily

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