Hitachi Global Storage Technologies said Tuesday (March 1) it was planning to more than double the total shipment of consumer electronics hard drives in 2005 in response to booming demand. To achieve this aggressive growth rate, Hitachi Global Storage Technologies (San Jose, Calif.) will tailor product development, customer support and marketing efforts to target MP3/personal media players, digital video recorders, and mobile phones. The company said it would more than double production of its 1-in. Microdrives, including the recently announced Mikey drive for emerging hard-drive-based mobile phones.

Hitachi added it would triple production of its 1.8-inch Travelstar product to further penetrate the music jukebox/PMP segment, and increase production of the 3.5-in. Deskstar product by more than 50 percent.

Analysts view consumer electronics as the key growth area for hard disk drives, particularly as the overall disk drive market slows.

Market research firm iSuppli Corp. (El Segundo, Calif.) expects hard disk drive shipments to rise 10 percent in 2005 from 304 million to 333.7 million units, after rising 17.3 percent last year.

The firm added the mobile PC arena, one of the fastest disk drive segments, will see slower growth as the transition from desktop to mobile PCs decelerates.

iSuppli, does, however, expect strong consumer demand to drive a 35 percent increase in non-IT hard drive shipments through 2008, reaching 89 million by then.