Micron Technology (MU) continues to expand its solid state drive (SSD) line-up, as it just released its new product, M600 SATA SSD to meet the growing demand for personal storage and also cater to the media and entertainment market. Shares of Micron went up 4.8% following the announcement of its latest M600 solid-state drive for PCs, tablets and other devices. We note that Micron had launched M550 in Mar, 2014.

M6000 SSD enables quick access to files and is more power efficient resulting in longer battery life. Moreover, the newly-launched SSD is equipped with hardware encryption facility coupled with data protection and recovery features. Available in capacities ranging from 128GB to 1TB, the SSD leverages Micron's innovative NAND Flash technology and will be directly sold to original equipment manufacturers.

The M6000 SSD works on Marvell Technology (MRVL) controllers for storage and delivery of digital data and video content.

The storage market is seeing a steady increase in demand, given fast-growing stored data volume, especially the explosive growth of unstructured data. NAND (non-volatile storage technology) demand is expected to remain very strong again this year. SSD demand will also increase and could even surpass manufacturing capacity, leading to periodic shortage and higher pricing in the near term.

Micron is benefiting from the growing demand for SSD products and has made significant investments to launch innovative SSD products to meet pent up demand.

As per technology research firm Gartner, the total SSD market is poised for strong growth, with revenues projected to more than double to reach $19.4 billion in 2014 from $9.2 billion in 2012. Also the research firm forecasts that the total addressable market (TAM) for SSDs will grow from $6.9 billion in 2012 to $22.3 billion in 2017 (CAGR 26%).

With these launches, we expect Micron to strengthen its market position against competitors like SanDisk (SNDK).

Moreover, Micron has been constantly innovating in memory technologies, spanning DRAM, NAND and NOR Flash memory solutions, which are being widely used in the latest mobile computing devices as well as in consumer, networking and embedded products.

According to management, DRAM demand is expected to increase at a CAGR of 25% over the 2014-2018 period, while supply is expected to increase at a CAGR of 21% during the same period. This strong demand should support prices.

Additionally, we believe that the acquisitions of Elpida will help Micron’s share in the memory market. The acquisition also brought Apple Inc. (AAPL) on to the customer roster, which is a positive for future growth.

Currently, Micron sports a Zacks Rank #1 (Strong Buy).

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