Following news of another setback to its long-running merger plans with Kioxia, Western Digital's board of directors has approved a plan to split the company, with the NAND flash and hard disk drive divisions becoming fully independent public companies, subject to final board approval and other regulations.

Western Digital will become a fully independent public company.

Western Digital, or simply WD as the brand name, has existed in the technology world for 53 years and is best known these days for its self-titled SSDs and HDDs, and SanDisk mobile storage. Memory), and SK Hynix, it is the fourth largest supplier.

To make SSDs and small flash cards, Western Digital uses Kioxia-owned manufacturing plants, and the two companies have worked hand-in-hand for years to develop new technologies. However, the picture is clouded by the fact that one of WD's closest competitors, SK Hynix, has invested in Kioxia and is enjoying a reasonable return on its cash infusion.

So when I read about Western Digital's plans to split into two separate companies, one dealing exclusively with flash and the other with HDDs, I immediately got a headache about what this would mean for the various companies and brands. Would the new SSD division merge with Kioxia? Whether they do or not, what will happen to the WD and SanDisk brand names? Will another company acquire the new HDD company?

Western Digital's flash drives are some of the best SSDs available today, offering massive amounts of performance and storage at relatively low prices. However, the market is very competitive, and both Kioxia and SK Hynix have their own SSDs and sell chips to other companies. For example, Solidigm SSDs are actually from SK Hynix, and both companies have models in all segments, including a 61 TB server monster.

The news of the split came on the same day that Western Digital released its Q1FY24 financials, but the numbers were somewhat mixed. Compared to this time last year, sales in the client and consumer divisions were up 11% and 14%, respectively, while the cloud division was down 14%.

However, overall net income this quarter and last quarter was poor, with losses of $685 million and $715 million, mainly because NAND flash prices are still at rock bottom and WD is selling a lot of NAND flash for consoles but not making enough money This is the main reason. This is not news because the flash industry is really volatile and prices fluctuate like a Halloween space hopper every year.

It remains to be seen if the Western Digital split will ultimately result in some form of a Kioxia merger, and while many investors and the stock market would certainly like to see this happen, having fewer competitors in this space is not good news for the average consumer. One only has to look at graphics cards to see what happens when the market is dominated by one company.

But even if it were to go through, there is no indication that Micron or SK Hynix would want to team up with any other group. We've said it before and we'll say it again now: upgrade your SSDs while prices are still reasonable.