Making another move into the consumer electronics market of the Far East, SanDisk said it will start selling miniSD memory cards through retail stores in Taiwan starting in May.

This comes a day after the Sunnyvale, Calif.-based maker of flash data storage cards announced the opening of a retail distribution center near Hong Kong aimed at expediting its products into the Far East markets.

SanDisk miniSD cards will be offered in capacities that range from 32MBytes to 256MBytes. The cards are used to store digital images, video, MP3 files and other data in camera phones and multimedia mobile phones.

The miniSD card format was introduced by SanDisk for sale to OEM customers in March 2003, and is being sold to consumers through retail outlets with a complementary adapter that converts the miniSD card into the SD card form factor. The adapter allows the miniSD card to fit into existing SD card slots, thereby providing compatibility with the growing number of SD compatible devices in the market.

The company said retail miniSD cards will start at 32MByte capacity with higher capacities ranging up to 256MByte to be introduced later this year. The retail price is expected to range from $44.99 to $94.99.