A Look Into The Hard Drive's Future

Players and Market Shares

Unlike the CPU or graphics space, the hard drive market is dominated by several big players. Although there are many differences with regards to market share and the segments the manufacturers target, all of the hard drive makers have the potential to release a high-flyer product with every new drive generation, and generation changes happen roughly once per year. Whether it is Hitachi, Seagate, Western Digital or others, all of them have already led the market in different categories in the past. This makes every generation change an exciting event, because you don’t know who will come out on top.

Who is Who: Market Shares

According to the market data we received from Hitachi, the company is the third largest player in the hard drive market based on number of drives shipped. We confirmed this data with independent numbers by iSupply and other suppliers (see the chart above). Seagate is by far the biggest player in the HDD market, followed by Western Digital. Samsung is fourth, but has been doing a good job in gaining more market share. The Japanese manufacturers Toshiba and Fujitsu come next, but they stopped shipping 3.5” mainstream desktop hard drives years ago, which partly explains why they cannot compete in terms of quantity.

Who is Who: Portfolios