Seagate Technology says that supply of hard disk drive will continue to fall shortly of demand this year , pass with child customers to wait to long - term agreement to ensure provision after annihilating floods in Thailand .
shortfall of drives by the ending of this year is likely to be about 150 million units , the company aver .
The forecast by Seagate is more or less in dividing line with those of research firms like Gartner whichsaid last monththat the major impact of the HDD shortage after the floods will be felt in the first half of this class , and even potentially continue through the class . PC shipment growth could be temporarily affected during 2012 , Gartner articulate .
Western Digital , which had its factories inundate in the floods , said last month that it expects its HDD production capacity to reach pre - flood story only by the third quarter of this twelvemonth .
In the December 2011 quarter , the industry is estimated to have produced 105 to 110 million drives , and send 119 million units , which fell short of demand for 175 million unit of measurement , Seagate said Tuesday while announce its financial results for the one-quarter ended Dec. 30 .
The caller shipped 47 million building block in the quarter , down 4 percent from the same quarter a year earlier , citing constituent shortages because of the floods . But the median selling price was up by $ 13 from a quarter earlier , even as modal unit cost also increase by about $ 2.50 as a result of the deluge .
Seagate closed its $ 1.4 billion acquirement of Samsung ’s heavy disk drive business on Dec. 19 . It shipped some 700,000 ride from this unit of measurement in December .
The company ’s revenue in the after part was $ 3.2 billion , up by about 18 percent from the same quarter in the previous year . last profit in the quartern was $ 563 million , up from $ 150 million a year earlier .
The fellowship has forecast at least $ 20 billion in revenue in this calendar year because of a “ comparatively benignant ” pricing environment . In the tail through March , the party expects revenue of $ 4.3 billion and to ship at least 60 million ride , which is bear to go up to at least $ 5 billion in the next one-fourth as the supply mountain range recovers .
Although the company ’s factories were not straightaway pretend by the floods , its factor supplier were hit , and many of them are brusque of capital to invest in unexampled tooling , fabrication equipment , and clean room facility destroyed in the floods , Dave Mosley , Seagate ’s executive frailty president of operation , said during a league call . Seagate is wait on suppliers where it can , including financing for capital equipment , he added .
Seven of its top ten suppliers had their factories damage as they were in the industrial parks 30 miles northwards of downtown Bangkok that were badly affect by the floods , and at one percentage point supply of constituent was totally down for some mathematical product job , Mosley said .
The low spot of industry production was not in the center to late October , as some industry observer claimed , but closer to the middle of December , according to Seagate CEO Steve LuczoO.
Seagate is also look some changes in the industry , including in the way customers are now set orders , Many large customers entered into long - term agreement , sometimes prevail into a number of years , which is new to the industry , and represents a morphologic modification in the way the company does business organisation , Luczo state .
The farseeing - terminus agreements are expect to calculate for over 60 percent of Seagate ’s product mental ability in the calendar twelvemonth , according to Luczo .
The company plans to auction off about 200,000 drives later this hebdomad to gauge demand , and furnish customer an extra channel to buy the drives . Seagate contrive to conduct such auctions periodically , Luczo enjoin .
