The Kingston Technology Corporation - short Kingston - is a US-based producer of almost everything that on data can be saved. The manufacturer's product portfolio includes various flash memory for digital cameras, USB flash drives and solid-state drives (SSD) and main memory for servers, desktops or laptops. In addition to high performance storage and server RAM Kingston offers its customers a variety of affordable storage variants for computers, servers, printers, smartphones or MP3 players.
By his own admission Kingston is the world's largest independent manufacturer of memory cards and memory modules. The company was founded in 1987 by the two friends John Tu and David Sun. These were in the process of developing a new form of memory module - the Single Inline Memory Module (SIMM). This should compensate for until then prevailing lack of interchangeable memory chips. After establishing the company Kingston Technologies this was granted the patent for those SIMM modules. Soon Kingston also took products (such as processor upgrades) in its range, which does not fall within the storage area, and 1993, the company was first to offer networking products and other storage products. Finally, the inclusion of portable storage followed in the selection of the American company.
Soon the storage vendor's first European settlement was established, which was chosen the Bavarian capital Munich as location of the event. In the same year - in 1995 - the turnover of Kingston Technology Corporation for the first time took more than one billion US dollars.
The Japanese Softbank Corporation made in 1996, 80 percent of the memory manufacturer to own. Three years later, Kingston bought these shares but then returned. In 1997, the European headquarters of the company in the UK was established. That same year expanded Kingston to Taiwan and in the Irish capital Dublin. 1999 was followed by another production site in Malaysia. Today Kingston draws on an extensive international network of resellers, dealers, distributors and OEM customers, which extends over six continents.