USB flash drives

	Relleek's model Balisong is a USB flash drive with a butterfly-knife design.

Major buyers attended the event looking for suppliers of high-quality yet inexpensive data storage devices.

Representatives from supply chain management services Li & Fung and international retailers Casino, Kesa and Staples reviewed exhibited products at the recent Data Storage: Private Sourcing Event organized by Global Sources.

Twenty-four major suppliers from Greater China participated in the PSE and met with the buyer firms in private, closed-door sessions. These included Luftco Technology Co. Ltd, Memory Electronic Co. Ltd, One Audio Electronics Ltd, Relleek Electronics Co. Ltd, Shenzhen Freegene Technology Ltd and Shenzhen Joydigi Technology Co. Ltd.

USB flash drives dominated the product showcase, with most models supporting NAND at 1GB or 2GB memory capacity. The read and write speeds are 8 to 10MBps and 5 to 7MBps, respectively.

Suppliers highlighted traditional and novelty designs.

Entry-level units range from $3 to $5. Midrange models start at $5, and upscale versions are between $25 and $40.

	Luftco's LCU CU -319 supports up to 8GB memory capacity.

The suppliers, mindful of the ongoing economic recession, are adopting more-flexible strategies such as reducing prices and decreasing minimum order requirement to as low as 100 units.

Luftco, for instance, accepts contracts for 100 pieces of USB flash drives. The company has been designing and manufacturing digital products since 2005 and offers multifunction drives with laser pointers and fingerprint protection.

Luftco welcomes OEM orders and can incorporate client logos and labels. Its 500sqm ISO 9001:2000-certified factory is equipped with two production lines, and has facilities for SMT, ultrasonic jointing and aging. The maker turns out 150,000 units a month. It sources memory chips from Samsung and Hynix.

The supplier boasts a product defect rate of only 0.5 percent. Its USB flash drives are compliant with CE, FCC and RoHS standards and ship mostly to the US and Europe.

Relleek exhibited USB flash drives, flash memory cards, portable media players or PMPs, digital photo frames and other USB devices during the PSE. Its selection of non-USB promotional products includes pens, key chains, T-shirts and mouse pads. They all come with a five-year warranty.

The company makes USB flash drives in its ISO 9001: 2000-certified factory. It has a monthly capacity of 1.5 million units. The facility is equipped with surface-mount, pad printing, heat stamping and bonding machines, IC development plates, CAD stations, oscilloscopes and spectrum analyzers. It has blister and clamshell production, spraying and tooling workshops. QC procedures cover IQC through FQC.

The supplier’s OEM and ODM services include mechanical tooling, electronic, graphic and packaging designs. Relleek also accommodates custom specifications from clients.

The maker uses pad printing, silk-screen, glossy labels, heat stamping, laser engraving and other processes to print buyer label. Materials and components are sourced from major OEMs such as Samsung, Toshiba, Fujitsu and Hynix.

Established in 2002, One Audio offers a wide range of products, including digital FM radio and portable camera pens, pen audio recorders, flash MP3 and MP4 players, basic and multifunction USB flash drives, DVB-T receivers and Bluetooth devices.

One Audio’s factory has a monthly capacity of 50,000 units. The in-house R&D team releases five new items a month. The company sources NAND flash memory chips from Samsung, Hynix and Intel.

Accounting for 80 percent of global supply, China has about 300 USB flash drive makers. Ninety percent of them are located in Guangdong province.

The biggest challenge for these manufacturers is cutthroat price competition. Eroding profit margins are forcing some companies to explore other more-lucrative lines such as MP4 and portable media players.

Other suppliers press on with product enhancement, eyeing fingerprint identification and network storage capability.