Kioxia and Western Digital are considering merging their flash memory production operations

The management of the new company is mainly from the Western Digital team. Due to the differences in the corporate cultures of the United States and Japan, there may be problems in future management. This is also one of the concerns of the two parties in this merger. In fact, in the summer of 2021, it was reported that Western Digital and Micron were interested in acquiring Kioxia. At that time, Kioxia’s valuation exceeded $20 billion. Although Western Digital squeezed out Micron and entered the substantive negotiation stage with Kioxia, after many rounds of negotiations, no final agreement was reached, and finally, nothing happened.

The relationship between Western Digital and Kioxia is already very close. The two parties jointly own two fabs in Japan, which together produce more NAND flash memory than any other manufacturer in the industry. The combined NAND flash memory market share of Western Digital and Kioxia is not low, accounting for nearly one-third of the market together, only slightly lower than Samsung.