History (1993): US HDD Maker Areal Technology Becomes Japanese Company

Areal Technology (San Jose, CA), manufacturer of 1.8- and 2.5-inch glass disk drives, a privately-owned company founded in 1988, is now under Japanese control.

Tomen Electronics Corp. and Tottori Sanyo have taken over a majority stake in Areal for $3 million.

The two buyers had already invested in Areal. Tomen was an Areal 2.5-inch Winchester drive distributor in Japan. Tottori Sanyo was manufacturing some of them in Tottori City, Japan, the other ones being made by Wearnes Technology in Singapore.

Mike Kirby, president and CEO of Areal, has been replaced by Mike Naoe from Tomen.

Last year, Areal had about $44 million in sales, according to Alan Wiskin, MD of Saratoga Marketing (Newburry, Berks, UK) in charge of European distribution for Areal drives. He didn’t mention how many units were sold but stated an average price close to $300 per drive, which means a total of around 150,000 units.

This article is an abstract of news published on the former paper version of Computer Data Storage Newsletter on issue ≠61, published on February 1993.