Hard Disk Drive Shortages To Ease By The End Of 2012
Seagate Chief Executive Officer Stephen J. Luczo is forecasting difficult times for the drive industry.
The recent floods in Thailand have caused significant disasters to the factories of Western Digital, Toshiba and Seagate, as well as to other suppliers of components needed for making hard disk drives.
Seagate's CEO is not very optimistic about when HDD production will be back to pre-flood levels.
"This is going to take a lot longer than people are assuming, until the end of 2012 at least," he said speaking to Bloomberg. And by then, demand will have gone up."
Compared with the scores of companies in the disk drive industry with operations in Thailand, Seagate Technology Plc is lucky. The company's two biggest competitors, Western Digital and Toshiba , both have major factories in the flood zone, and industry production this quarter is expected to be 50 million drives short of its 180 million target.
Average drive prices have already jumped about 20 percent because of the flooding.
Seagate's CEO is not very optimistic about when HDD production will be back to pre-flood levels.
"This is going to take a lot longer than people are assuming, until the end of 2012 at least," he said speaking to Bloomberg. And by then, demand will have gone up."
Compared with the scores of companies in the disk drive industry with operations in Thailand, Seagate Technology Plc is lucky. The company's two biggest competitors, Western Digital and Toshiba , both have major factories in the flood zone, and industry production this quarter is expected to be 50 million drives short of its 180 million target.
Average drive prices have already jumped about 20 percent because of the flooding.
