According to a report from AnandTech, Western Digital has completed the acquisition of SanDisk after the regulatory review process has been closed with the final approval from Chinese authorities. Following the buyout of the third-largest manufacturer of flash memory in the world, the American computer data storage company is poised to become one of the biggest worldwide storage solutions providers.
Western Digital CEO Steve Milligan released the following statement in a press release:
“This transformational combination creates a media-agnostic leader in storage technology with a robust portfolio of products and solutions that will address a wide range of applications in almost all of the world’s computing and mobile devices. We are excited to now begin focusing on the many opportunities before us, from leading innovation to bringing the best of what we can offer as a combined company to our customers. In addition, we will begin the work to fully realize the value of this combination through executing on our synergies, generating significant cash flow, as well as rapidly deleveraging our balance sheet, and creating significant long-term value for our shareholders.”
Steve Milligan will continue to serve as CEO of Western Digital, which will remain headquartered in Irvine, California, while SanDisk Co-founder, President, and CEO Sanjay Mehrotra will serve as a member of the Western Digital Board of Directors. According to AnandTech, the company will now “control over 40% of the HDD market, around 10% of the SSD market and a substantial chunk of NAND flash supply”.
However, the new storage giant will also be facing many challenges as it will have to figure out how to streamline both its product line and workforce while fighting many competitors including Toshiba, Seagate, Samsung, Intel and more specialized companies such as EMC, HPE and others. We encourage you to read the full report over here.