Samsung Electronics Co., Ltd., a world leader in digital consumer electronics and information technology, announced an agreement with Micro Center to sell its external hard drives on Micro Center’s web site and in their retail stores nationwide. Micro Center, a premier online and retail store with twenty-one stores in major markets nationwide, is uniquely focused on computers and computer-related products. This agreement marks the first time Samsung will sell external drives through a retail channel, signifying Samsung’s distribution strategy to expand external drive sales in the US burgeoning channel markets.
“Samsung will leverage Micro Center’s expert service-oriented staff that specializes in PCs and peripherals to expand our user base,” said Andy Higginbotham, director of HDD sales and marketing for the Samsung Semiconductor Storage Division. “With a strong brand name presence with many of our other consumer electronic products, our objective is to make sure that more consumers have access to top-quality, dependable external storage products.”
As the first retail and e-retail authorized distributor, Micro Center will be responsible for expanding the market for Samsung’s full line of external drives, including S1 Mini 1.8” hard drive with capacities in 120/160/250GB; S2 portable in 160/250/320/500GB capacities; and Story Station with capacities of 1/1.5TB; and future external drives.
“Micro Center is excited to be partnering with Samsung to provide our customers with a larger assortment of storage products” said Kevin L. Jones, Micro Center Vice President, Merchandising. “Samsung’s reputation for offering world-class storage devices is a perfect match with Micro Center’s reputation for providing customers the most satisfying PC shopping experience.”
Samsung’s external HDD product line of 1.8” and 2.5” includes drives made from native USB. Native USB eliminates the need for an additional “bridge board” to convert PATA interface into the USB, while USB interface is incorporated with the internal hard drive. By eliminating this bridge board, Samsung is able to achieve new, smaller form factor external HDDs. The reliability of the device is improved by removing possible failures related to the bridge board connectors and components.
Samsung’s family of external drives can be found www.microcenter.com.