Kingston Technology Corporation is an American multinational computer technology corporation that develops, manufactures, sells and supports computer memory products such as memory modules, solid-state drives, and other flash memory products. It founded the HyperX gaming brand, but then sold it to HP. The company is headquartered in Fountain Valley, California, United States and has manufacturing and logistics facilities in the United States, the United Kingdom, Ireland, Taiwan, and China. It is the largest independent producer of DRAM memory modules. In 2018 the company generated $7.5 billion in revenue and made No. 53 on the Forbes list of "America's Largest Private Companies 2019", it made No. 28 on list of "America's Largest Private Companies 2025" . Kingston serves an international network of distributors, resellers, retailers and OEM customers on six continents. The company also provides contract manufacturing and supply chain management services for semiconductor manufacturers and system OEMs.
History Kingston Technology was founded in October 1987 by John Tu and David Sun. In 1990 the company branched out into its first non-memory product line, processor upgrades. The company expanded into networking and storage product lines, and introduced DataTraveler and DataPak portable products. In September 1994, Kingston became ISO 9000 certified on its first assessment attempt. In 1995, Kingston opened a branch office in Munich, Germany to provide technical support and marketing capabilities for its European distributors and customers. In October 1995, the company joined the "Billion-Dollar Club". After the company's 1995 sales exceeded $1.3 billion, ads ran thanking the employees ("Thanks a Billion!") with each individual employee-name in The Wall Street Journal, The Orange County Register and The Los Angeles Times. Ads also appeared in trade publications and The Wall Street Journal thanking the company's suppliers and distributors. On August 15, 1996 SoftBank Corporation of Japan acquired 80 percent of Kingston for a total of $1.8 billion. In November of the same year, Kingston and Toshiba co-marketed memory upgrades for Toshiba PCs - the first time that a PC OEM and a memory manufacturer had teamed up to create a co-branded module. In 1999, Tu and Sun eventually bought back the 80 percent of Kingston owned by Softbank for $450 million. In 1996, Kingston opened its European headquarters in London, United Kingdom. In January 1997, Kingston opened a manufacturing facility/office in Taiwan, a sales office in Japan, and a manufacturing facility and offices in Dublin, Ireland. The company also expanded its American manufacturing capacity by purchasing PC-OEM manufacturing buildings in Fountain Valley, California. Kingston also introduced ValueRAM, which was a high-quality, low-cost memory designed for system integrators to use in white box systems. In 1999, Kingston launched Advanced Validation Labs, Inc. (AVL), a sister company that provides memory validation services.
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