Accordiing to beancounters at Forward Insights, which has been analysing the non-volatile semiconductor industry since 2008 more than 63 million SSDs were shipped worldwide in the channel in 2016 with Kingston accounting for nearly 10.1 million units.

The amount represented 16 percent or second-most in the global market, showing Kingston’s growth as one of the top suppliers of SSDs. The sales channel is comprised of distributors, resellers, retail/e-tail, system builders and solutions providers.

Gregory Wong, President & Principal Analyst, Forward Insights said that his  research showed third-party SSD manufacturers accounted for 60 percent of all channel shipments last year as a number of the semiconductor-based vendors de-emphasized their channel business.  

He said : “Although under allocation since mid-Q2 2016, channel shipments as a whole remained strong and Kingston was one of the top leaders in this category.”

Tony Hollingsbee, SSD Business Manager at Kingston, said the desire to switch to SSDs continues to grow as consumers and corporate customers alike see the performance benefits of upgrading from hard-disk drives.

“For nearly 30 years, Kingston’s focus and core sales strength has been with our channel partners worldwide. Our terrific relationship with them has helped make our SSD business grow globally since we shipped our first drive in 2009. The latest results from Forward Insights help validate these efforts and we certainly share this success with our channel partners.”