[a] In October 1999, Sony licensed the technology to Fujitsu, Aiwa, Sanyo, Sharp, Pioneer and Kenwood, in a bid to avoid a repetition of the Betamax failure.

In spring 2001, Memory Stick attained 25% market share (against CompactFlash's 40% and SmartMedia's 32%), up from 7% a year earlier.

[6] However the SD card, jointly developed by Toshiba, Panasonic and SanDisk, became widely popular among companies and soon became the most popular flash format – by November 2003 it held 42% market share in the United States, ahead of CompactFlash's 26% and Memory Stick with 16%.

[8] As of January 2010[update], it appeared that Sony had begun to combine support for SD/SDHC and Memory Stick formats in their products.

All digital cameras and camcorders announced by Sony at the 2010 Consumer Electronics Show could use SD and SDHC cards as well as Memory Sticks.

[22] Typically, Memory Sticks are used as storage media for a portable device, in a form that can easily be removed for access by a personal computer.

For example, Sony digital compact cameras use Memory Stick for storing image files.

Sony typically included Memory Stick reader hardware in its first-party consumer electronics, such as digital cameras, digital music players, PDAs, cellular phones, the VAIO line of laptop computers, TV sets under the WEGA and Bravia names, and Sony's handheld gaming device, the PlayStation Portable.

The Sticks include a copy protection mechanism used by the robot, allowing users to write programs.

This adapter, which took CR2016 cells for power, served a dual purpose of expanding storage capacity of the Mavica and giving those who did not have an existing Memory Stick drive a means of computer interfacing.

This solution was fairly unpopular, but it did give users of older Memory Stick devices more capacity.

The Memory Stick PRO, introduced on January 9, 2003, as a joint effort between Sony and SanDisk,[26] would be the longer-lasting solution to the space problem.

[27] High Speed Memory Stick PROs are available, and newer devices support this high-speed mode, allowing for faster file transfers.

It is slightly smaller than the competing Secure Digital (SD) format and roughly two thirds the length of the standard Memory Stick form factor, but costs more.

[29] Sony has since finalized the format and released its specification under the new name, Memory Stick XC (see below).

With these enhancements, a theoretical transfer rate of 480 Mbit/s (60 MB/s) is achieved, which is three times faster than the Memory Stick PRO format.

In a joint venture with SanDisk, Sony released a new Memory Stick format on February 6, 2006.

Sony announced the release of the Memory Stick PRO-HG Duo HX on May 17, 2011, which was considered the fastest card ever made by the manufacturer.