HDD Prices are Increasing Rapidly; 50% in One Week
The hard drive market is reacting to the heavy floods in Thailand.
Prices for hard drives have jumped by as much as 50 percent within one week, market research firm IHS said. About a quarter of all hard drives are manufactured in Thailand and it appears that all major vendors are affected in some way.
Western Digital previously said that it may see a revenue decline of about 60 percent in the current quarter and told German publication Golem.de that it will be able to produce only 22 to 26 million drives this quarter, instead of the planned 58 million units. A spokesperson said that WD "currently waits for the factories to dry" to be able to restart its manufacturing tools. What makes matters worse are the usually thin profit margins in the HDD industry, which means that manufacturers typically have only five to seven days of material supply.
A Seagate manager told CRN India that the company expects and "acute" shortage of drives and that the manufacturer expects prices to increase. However, there was no information how sharp this increase can be. Both WD and Seagate said that the floods in Thailand have created a problem for the industry that will take several quarters to resolve.
Gotta love how the prices on HDDs already in stock and in their warehouse goes up when something happens somewhere else
It's going to take more like 6 months to get back to normal.
Gotta love how the prices on HDDs already in stock and in their warehouse goes up when something happens somewhere else
Well, mechanical drives are still better for capacity and data storage. Plus I can't build a budget machine for someone with an SSD. This is unfortunate, but I do agree that like others I can ride this out for now.
A few weeks? Anyone who understands how industry works in this part of the world is laughing quite uncontrollably. A few weeks from now (after any inventory in the pipe from these plants is completely gone) they will be several MONTHS away from seeing the pipeline full of inventory again. The shortage and high prices, unless demand slumps due to protracted economic issues, will last for at least 6 months, if not a year.
What I find disgusting is the time it takes for prices to change. Once something triggers the price hike, online stores skyrocket their prices over night. Then, when things rectify themselves, it takes months for the prices to eventually trickle back down to the pre-event prices.
And yes, most of the stock that is inflated is already in the warehouse, immune to whatever raised prices, so why so quick to raise them? Price gouging, since retailers can get away with it, and blame current events?
Hey I'm all for American jobs but national disasters happen in the USA too. The only difference between the two coutries is that it probably takes a little longer to rebuild in these third world countries.