Memory manufacturer SanDisk Corp. announced on Thursday that it will begin selling microSD memory cards at capacities up to 2-gigabytes in Japan, the highest amount of storage offered in microSD format to date there.

The Sunnyvale Calif.-based firm is rolling out the new memory to coincide with recently announced microSD compatible handsets introduced through Japanese wireless provider, NTT DoCoMo.

Though the firm introduced the fingernail-sized memory format recently, it estimates that over 49 percent of latest mobile phones have adopted the format.

Considering the fact that SanDisk created microSD just two years ago, these statistics show a very quick adoption rate of this form factor by the mobile phone industry, said Yoram Cedar, SanDisk's executive vice president.

The memory will be available on October 25, 2006 in Japan.

Correction: An article on Tuesday, October 12, referring to sales of memory cards by SanDisk, incorrectly stated that the company announced it will begin selling microSD memory cards at capacities up to 2-gigabytes.

SanDisk had previously announced that it would begin selling the 2-gigabyte cards on July 31, 2006.

Japan