Hitachi's world-renowned one-inch hard drive -- the Microdrive 3K6 -- was declared the winner in the Digital Imaging category, where survey respondents determined great picture quality and the ability to easily share photos to be must-have features. Overall, the survey found ease-of-use, reliability and a lightweight design to be the most important attributes in women's selection of consumer electronics.

"The Microdrive as a girl's best friend makes absolute sense, because it allows women to keep so much of what means most to us at hand to share and treasure," said Becky Smith, vice president, marketing & strategy, Hitachi Global Storage Technologies. "While we didn't design the Microdrive specifically for women, we certainly integrated their requirements for simplicity, portability and durability into the fabric of the product. We added high capacity to this list and developed the ideal storage solution for handheld consumer electronics."

Winning products in the eight consumer electronic categories that appeal to women, including the Microdrive 3K6, will be featured at CEA's "Technology Is a Girl's Best Friend" Diamond Product Showcase to be displayed at the Consumer Electronics Show in Las Vegas. The showcase will be located in the Sands Expo and Convention Center lobby, January 5-8, 2006.

The Hitachi Microdrive 3K6 offers 6 gigabytes(1) of storage capacity in a one-inch drive. In other words, that's 6,000 digital photos (1 MB each), 1,500-3,000 songs or eight hours of MPEG-4 video(2) -- all in a device that's smaller than the typical matchbook. Introduced in 1999, the Microdrive led the penetration of small-from-factor hard drives into consumer electronic devices, spanning digital still/video cameras, digital music players and multi-media handheld devices.

Product Availability

The Hitachi Microdrive 3K6 is available at retails stores nationwide in the removable Compact Flash Type II form factor. The 3K6 is also available in an embedded version.

(1) 1 gigabyte equals one billion bytes

(2) Actual storage may vary depending on compression rate applied

About Hitachi Global Storage Technologies

Hitachi Global Storage Technologies was founded in 2003 as a result of the strategic combination of Hitachi's and IBM's storage technology businesses. Hitachi GST is the industry's second largest hard disk drive manufacturer in revenue.

The company's goal is to enable users to fully engage in the digital lifestyle by providing access to large amounts of storage capacity in formats suitable for the office, on the road and in the home. The company offers customers worldwide a comprehensive range of storage products for desktop computers, high-performance servers and mobile devices. For more information on Hitachi Global Storage Technologies, please visit the company's Web site at http://www.hitachigst.com.

About Hitachi, Ltd.

Hitachi, Ltd., (NYSE:HIT), headquartered in Tokyo, Japan, is a leading global electronics company with approximately 347,000 employees worldwide. Fiscal 2004 (ended March 31, 2005) consolidated sales totaled 9,027.0 billion yen ($84.4 billion). The company offers a wide range of systems, products and services in market sectors including information systems, electronic devices, power and industrial systems, consumer products, materials and financial services. For more information on Hitachi, please visit the company's Web site at http://www.hitachi.com.