By Angela Dorizas

SYDNEY: Microdia, a leader in flash memory technology, has appointed BSR Group as its first retail partner and it aims to take SanDisk’s number one position. The announcement was made today before its Australian debut at the PMA Expo in Brisbane.

“BSR Group is a great company and they suit the Microdia brand,” said Neltronics national sales manager, Lee Jefferies.

“They are a very strong group and they have seen wealth of opportunity with Microdia.”

Distributed locally by Neltronics, Microdia made a teaser appearance at CeBIT Australia last week. Its product range includes flash memory cards, multi-slot card readers, adapters, single-slot card readers, USB flash drives, along with multimedia and Bluetooth personal entertainment devices.

With a boom in the flash memory card market, Microdia is seeking to expand its global footprint. The Australian and New Zealand flash memory card and USB market is worth more than $200 million, according to information supplied by the company.

Microdia is a value proposition for retailers, providing “very good margins,” Jefferies told Current.

Microdia flash memory cards are claimed to be water, dust and heat proof. They can operate between -40 and 85¢ª Celcius. Microdia say their flash cards offer data storage longevity, protect against data corruption and are backed by a lifetime warranty.

The hero product range is the Xtra Elite 300x CompactFlash memory card series for professional photographers. The CF cards are available in a range of capacities from 2GB to 64 GB, with prices ranging from $99.95 to $1995 RRP. Final pricing on the 64GB is yet to be confirmed. They deliver a minimum sustained write speed of 45MB per second.

“Microdia’s products are of the highest quality and capacity, the fastest and most reliable devices in their field,” Jefferies said.

Microdia is setting its eyes on the number one spot in the flash memory market, preparing to go head-to-head with SanDisk.

“We are targeting the number one spot and we are hoping to get there in the next 12 months,” Jefferies said.

“We expect very good sales.”

Neltronics was unable to comment on other retail partnerships currently under negotiation.

CLARIFICATION: Neltronics and BSR are in negotiations to sell Microdia products throughout Australia. At the time of publication, Monday 26 May 2008, Neltronics national sales manager Lee Jefferies said a deal had been reached between BSR and Neltronics, however as at Monday 2 June, this deal has still not yet been finalised. Mr Jefferies apologises for any inconvenience his remark may have caused.