Toshiba Memory Corporation was sold to Bain Capital during a financial crunch in Q2 2018. Since Toshiba Memory is no longer owned by Toshiba, the name had to change. Today is the date that the storage manufacturer jettisons the name of the 144-year old Japanese company and rebrands itself Kioxia.
Kioxia is the New Name for Toshiba Memory
If you were wondering how to pronounce Kioxia, the company says “kee-ox-ee-uh.” That may not sound like a name you are familiar with, so here is the company’s breakdown of the meaning:
Kioxia is a combination of the Japanese word kioku meaning “memory” and the Greek word axia meaning “value.” Merging “memory” with “value,” Kioxia represents the company’s mission to uplift the world with “memory,” which forms the foundation of the company’s vision. (Source: Toshiba Memory America, soon Kioxia America)
Toshiba is pulling from its Japanese heritage with the first part of the name. It is also giving a nod to a traditionally important market, Greece, by using a Greek word for inspiration.
Final Words
For our readers, the impacts on the product side will be less pronounced. Perhaps the bigger impact is that drives will now be labeled as Kioxia instead of Toshiba. For resellers, that means changing configurators and potentially quotes. For those in operations, if you are pulling drive labels and using the “Toshiba” name, you will need to pivot to Kioxia as the firmware is updated and new drives are installed. Perhaps the bigger campaign is to educate the market that a Kioxia SSD is not from a small niche player. Instead, Kioxia needs to build brand equity to buyers understand they are buying a SSD from a major SSD vendor. That is an exercise that many companies have undertaken. Now, it is Kioxia’s time to build brand equity and become top-of-mind as a higher-end brand.
