Press Releases

Sep 6, 2000

Retail Distributors Signed Up In Ten New Countries

LONDON, UK, Sept. 6, 2000 - SanDisk Corporation (NASDAQ:SNDK) today announced that it has launched an expansion of its growing retail presence in Europe, the Middle East and Africa (EMEA region) by signing up retail distributors in 10 new countries and adding new retail outlets in EMEA region countries where SanDisk-branded products already are sold. The expansion is being driven by an accelerating demand for SanDisk's flash memory cards which are being used for numerous new, mass market applications including the storage of images in digital cameras, music in Internet music players and data in handheld computers and mobile phones. The announcement was made at SanDisk press briefings in London. 

Gerrit Van Hofwegen, EMEA retail sales manager, said, "Product revenue from SanDisk's Europe operations accounted for 16 percent of all product revenue in the first half of this year. In 1999, Europe's product revenue was 11 percent of the company's total product revenue. SanDisk's total revenue during the first six months of 2000 was $253 million, surpassing the $247 million in revenue recorded during all of 1999." 

Van Hofwegen added, "SanDisk's sales in Europe are strongest in the UK, Germany, France and Holland with business growing briskly also in Belgium, Scandinavia, Italy and Spain. We see considerable new business ahead in many of the EMEA markets, such as the Middle East, South Africa and Eastern Europe where consumer electronics products are starting to sell strongly. SanDisk is vigorously pursuing that business." 

The new retail distributors were signed up in South Africa, Canary Islands, Israel, Ireland, Russia, Hungary, Czech Republic, Poland, Turkey and Greece. SanDisk-branded flash memory cards and card readers are now sold in more than 7000 retail outlets in the EMEA countries. 

To help manage SanDisk's growing business, the company has hired London-based Stuart Fray who joined the company as Northern Europe retail sales manager to handle SanDisk's retail business in the UK and Scandinavia. Fray reports to Van Hofwegen who is based in Holland and oversees SanDisk's retail sales operations in Europe, the Middle East and Africa. 

SanDisk Corporation, the world's largest supplier of flash data storage products, designs, manufactures and markets industry-standard, solid-state data, digital imaging and audio storage products using its patented, high density flash memory and controller technology. SanDisk is based in Sunnyvale, CA. 

The matters discussed in this news release contain forward looking statements that are subject to certain risks and uncertainties as described under the caption "Factors That May Affect Future Results" in the company's annual report on Form 10-K and quarterly reports on Form 10-Q, filed with the Securities and Exchange Commission. The company assumes no obligation to update the information in this release.