SanDisk today announced that it will supply Siemens with Reduced Size MultiMediaCards (RS-MMC) for sale with the Siemens S65 handset.

At roughly half the size of a postage stamp, the SanDisk RS-MMC is one of the world's smallest flash memory form factors. A 32-megabyte RS-MMC will be bundled with sales of the Siemens mobile phones, which are expected to reach dealers in Europe, Asia Pacific and Latin America by October 1, 2004.

Unveiled in March at the CeBIT 2004 trade show in Hannover, Germany, the Siemens S65 also comes with a full suite of business software, a large 65k TFT color screen, a speakerphone, Bluetooth wireless communication, instant messaging, and synchronization with Microsoft Outlook and IBM's Lotus Notes. The video recorder films at 15 frames per second and the video clips can be e-mailed, played back or stored on the RS-MMC card.

SanDisk's RS-MMC, measuring 24 by 18 by 1.4 mm, is about half the size of a standard MultiMediaCard. The company also offers 64MB and 128MB capacities for RS-MMC.

The market for mobile phones with flash memory card slots is projected to increase rapidly. Market research firm IDC is predicting that manufacturers will sell over 157 million such phones by the end of this year, and that by 2005 the number will reach 246 million.

According to a report from Gartner, Inc., worldwide sales of all types of mobile phones totaled 153 million units for the first quarter of 2004, representing a record 34 percent increase over the first quarter of 2003. This robust market is prompting Gartner to predict that mobile phone sales will exceed 600 million units for 2004.

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