Posted on Thursday, November 17 2011 @ 21:00 CET by Thomas De Maesschalck
The Tech Report
writes Seagate CEO Stephen Luczo doesn't see the HDD market return to normal until late 2012 at the earliest:
Perhaps, but if Seagate CEO Stephen Luczo is right, don't hold your breath. Speaking to Bloomberg, Luczo labeled as "nonsense" estimates that drive production will return to "pre-flood levels" by next summer. He added:
“This is going to take a lot longer than people are assuming, until the end of 2012 at least,” he says. “And by then, demand will have gone up.”
DigiTimes
on the other hand claims the imbalance between supply and demand is not as serious as originally expected, and heard from channel retailers that prices may start dropping again in December.
Since Japan-based hard drive motor supplier Nidec already announced that one of its plants in Thailand has resumed production, while many other hard drive component suppliers are also aggressively seeking solutions to substitute their lost capacity in Thailand, the sources believe the hard drive shortage issues will see an obvious improvement in January 2012.
Since the hard drive shortages may not be as serious as expected, while demand in the PC market remains weak as pricing has surpassed consumers' sweet spot, several retailers are already set to drop their hard drive prices and dump inventories into retail channel in December.
