History (1992): MKE to Manufacture Quantum HDDs in Ireland

Quantum Corp.’s executives had announced that it was going to establish an European manufacturing site.

They finally chose a plant set up by Matsushita Kotobuki Electronics Co. Ltd. that already manufactured over 10 million HDDs for Quantum. The new subsidiary, set up on May 21 in Ireland, and named Ireland Kotobuki Electronics Industries Ltd. (IKEI), will begin production of 3.5-inch drives as of next October in Dundalk (Co. Louth).

The Industrial Development Authority (IDA) will part fund the new $12.6 million facility.

According to Matsushita, IKEI will employ 250 people and will produce from 1993 one million drives a year to be sold to Quantum on an OEM basis.

“Our sales in Europe have increased 46% compared with last year and represent 30.4% of Quantum’s worldwide sales that have reached over $1 billion,” says J. Miller, CEO for Quantum. “We already own a logistic center in Dundalk where our products are configures to answer our customer needs.”

Among its European clients there are companies like Olivetti, Aquarius, Siemens/Escom, Vobis and, as well as US-owned ones like Apple, Hewlett-Packard, Dell Computer, Intel, NCR and Unisys.

This article is an abstract of news published on the former paper version of Computer Data Storage Newsletter on issue ≠53, published on June 1992.