TOKYO, Japan -- Toshiba Corp. said Tuesday it planned to start production of solid-state drives (SSD) overseas to cut costs and increase output, beginning assembly in the Philippines by the middle of the year.

Toshiba, the world's number two maker of NAND flash memory after Samsung Electronics Co., is betting on strong growth for NAND-based SSD memory devices, seen as a promising alternative to some hard-disk drives because they are more shock-resistant and consume less energy.

Also expecting usage of SSDs at data centers and other places that now rely heavily on hard disks, Toshiba has said it planned to boost SSD output by 15-fold over the next two years and aims to take half of the global market for the devices.

Research firm iSuppli forecast the world SSD market to jump to $12.3 billion in 2012 from $84 million last year.

The Nikkei business daily reported Toshiba aimed to generate 100 billion yen ($1.0 billion) in SSD sales in the year starting April next year, more than 10 times the current figure.

Toshiba spokeswoman Hiroko Mochida said the sale figure is not what the company announced.

She said Toshiba plans to shift some SSD assembly to the Philippines from a domestic plant, starting in the April-June quarter.

The Philippine plant will initially make 64- to 512-gigabyte SSDs for use in notebook computers and other devices, using a 43-nanometer line width.

Toshiba shares fell 1.3 percent to 224 yen, against a 0.3-percent slide in the benchmark Nikkei average.

($1=98.78 Yen)