Western Digital Regains HDD Market Lead in Q2

News
By Wolfgang Gruener
published

Following Seagate, Western Digital has apparently recovered from the impact of the Thailand flood as well. As of Q2, the company has become the leading hard drive maker again.

According to IHS, the company built about 71.0 million HDDs during the quarter, ahead of Seagate, which manufactured 65.9 million devices. WD's revenue was $4.8 billion, while Seagate posted $4.5 billion of sales.

“Western Digital lost its No. 1 unit shipment ranking to Seagate in the fourth quarter of 2012 after flooding in Thailand damaged its HDD manufacturing facility,” said Fang Zhang, analyst for storage systems at IHS. “The company now has fully recovered from the disaster, allowing it to sharply increase shipments of HDDs for notebook PCs, up 28 percent from the first quarter. Western Digital is on track to retain the top spot in shipments and revenue for the third quarter.”

WD held a 45 percent market share in Q2, followed by Seagate with 42 percent. The distance to the only other remaining HDD maker, Toshiba, has grown as the company's production dropped from 20.6 million to 20.1 million drives and the market share declined to 13 percent.

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Wolfgang Gruener
21 Comments Comment from the forums
  • ilysaml
    So, WTF is wrong with HDD prices nowadays? And I remember that Toms posted news that it will recover in early 2014, now it says it has already recovered.
    Reply
  • Pennanen
    ilysamlSo, WTF is wrong with HDD prices nowadays? And I remember that Toms posted news that it will recover in early 2014, now it says it has already recovered.Price fixing happened :D
    Reply
  • computermania
    WD would not have lost the lead in the first place if not for the Thailand flood.
    Reply
  • DRosencraft
    ilysamlSo, WTF is wrong with HDD prices nowadays? And I remember that Toms posted news that it will recover in early 2014, now it says it has already recovered.
    The article says that WD's production has recovered, not prices. Seagate never had a production problem in the traditional sense - they simply had to pick up the slack in the market left by WD. It'll take a while for prices to return to where they used to be because the supply deficit in the market has to even out, and then the previous oversupply builds up again (provided a traditional cycle persists).
    Reply
  • ahnilated
    Picking up the shipments and shipping quality products is another story. I have had 5/8 of my WD drives fail within the first 6 months. That should really put a company out of business imho.
    Reply
  • kristi_metal
    “Western Digital lost its No. 1 unit shipment ranking to Seagate in the fourth quarter of 2012 after flooding in Thailand damaged its HDD manufacturing facility,”

    I think it should be "in the fourth quarter of 2011", we are not yet in the 4th quarter of 2012 :)
    Reply
  • sheepsnowadays
    HDD's are still too overpriced. I remember buying my 500GB 7200rpm WD Black for $49.99 last year. I can only dream of buying another one near this price.
    Reply
  • pharoahhalfdead
    kristi_metal“Western Digital lost its No. 1 unit shipment ranking to Seagate in the fourth quarter of 2012 after flooding in Thailand damaged its HDD manufacturing facility,”I think it should be "in the fourth quarter of 2011", we are not yet in the 4th quarter of 2012
    Haha, you beat beat me. I was confused about the "fourth quarter" comment as well.
    Reply
  • 500GB disks are not going to be 49.99 anymore. Its the 2-3TB disks that are starting to hit the sweet spot again.
    Reply
  • drwho1
    sheepsnowadaysHDD's are still too overpriced. I remember buying my 500GB 7200rpm WD Black for $49.99 last year. I can only dream of buying another one near this price.
    Pffft, I remember 2TB hard drives for $79 dollars just a few days before this fiasco.
    Reply