SanDisk To Offer Micro SD Cards Pre-loaded With Content?

Will SanDisk ( NSDQ: SNDK), makers of SD memory cards that became a popular way to store photos in digital cameras, start offering pre-loaded micro SD cards for mobiles?

SanDisk has been flirting with the idea of pre-loading micro SD cards with songs for its Sansa music players for a few months now. It sent out a free taster card in March to buyers of its Sansa Fuze MP3 player. The card could also be used on any music phone as the songs loaded on it were DRM-free. But now it seems that it may be considering a bigger push in this area. Sandisk VP and GM of its mobile retail division Michael Romero toldSFgate.comthe company would make an announcement in the fourth quarter around the cards, but that pre-loaded micro SD cards "make sense," saying they offered "instant consumption."

SanDisk has been working hard in the last few months trying to educate consumers on what the tiny card in the little slot on the side of their phone is capable of doing, or as Romero says the time "is ripe to unlock cell phones and 'wake up' their potential, in much the same way that iPhone 3G users are learning to fill up their devices with content." SanDisk now offers an 8 gigabyte micro SD card, and a 16 gigabyte card is coming shortly. According to Romero, 770 million phones shipped this year with micro SD slots, with an additional 900 million more phones with the slots to ship next year.

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