Western Digital Could Lead Hard Drive Market in 2009

Hard disk drive (HDD) manufacturers are repositioning themselves in this Great Recession, which will impact market share leadership in 2009.

We pointed out in a Seeking Alpha article of February 18, 2009 that Toshiba (TOSBF.PK) would move into first place in 2.5-inch hard drive with purchase of Fujitsu’s (FJTSY.PK) business. Now, two quarters later Western Digital (WDC) could move into first place in the overall HDD business for calendar year 2009 on a unit basis.

Unit Shipments	Sept – 2008	Dec - 2008	Mar – 2009	June 2009
Western Digital	39,400,000	35.500,000	31,600,000	40,000,000
Seagate	48,000,000	37,000,000	38,000,000	40,600,000

The market for 2009 is about product mix. Seagate (STX) leads in the desktop and the enterprise markets, which are down for 2009, while Western Digital has focused on non-desktop applications, primarily the 2.5-inch form factor for mobile and CE (Consumer Electronics), which are up in 2009.

We estimate that Western digital has increased its lead in the 2.5-inch HDD space to 30% this past quarter compared to Seagate’s 21%. Seagate held a 41% share of the desktop market and a 61% share of the enterprise market.

While the overall HDD market grew 17% sequentially in the second quarter, Seagate grew only 7% while Western Digital grew 27%.

For 2009 we forecast the total HDD market to reach 600 million units, up 9% from 2008.

Disclosure: No positions

Comments

[Sam Liu:]

Didn't Seagate purchase Western Digital a few years ago

Aug 04 12:25 AM