iSuppli: WD will now capture nearly half of the HDD market

Posted on Tuesday, March 08 2011 @ 21:11 CET by Thomas De Maesschalck
Market watcher iSuppli reports Western Digital's acquisition of Hitachi Global Storage Technologies will propel it's marketshare to nearly 50 percent of the HDD market, as well as bolster its enterprise disk sales.
With its purchase of Hitachi Global Storage Technologies (Hitachi GST), hard drive maker Western Digital (WDC) will pad its lead in the global hard disk drive (HDD) market, giving it nearly double the market share of the number two supplier Seagate Technology. With the purchase, WDC will claim 49.6% share of global HDD shipments based on fourth-quarter totals, compared to 29.4% for Seagate. This will give WDC a lead of 20.2 percentage points over Seagate, up from a mere two points without the acquisition.

The Hitachi purchase will allow WDC to enter the critical enterprise HDD segment. WDC currently is only a marginal player in the enterprise HDD market, with nearly all of its sales going instead to the market for consumer drives, an area that includes products like desktop and mobile PCs, set-top boxes and video game consoles. Of all of the major HDD suppliers, Western Digital in the fourth quarter of 2010 had the smallest share of any company's total shipments going to the enterprise segment, at less than 1%. In comparison, 65% of Seagate's HDD shipments and 27% of Hitachi GST's shipments went to the enterprise market.


About the Author

Thomas De Maesschalck

Thomas has been messing with computer since early childhood and firmly believes the Internet is the best thing since sliced bread. Enjoys playing with new tech, is fascinated by science, and passionate about financial markets. When not behind a computer, he can be found with running shoes on or lifting heavy weights in the weight room.



Loading Comments