Western Digital could lead HDD market in 2009

NEW TRIPOLI, USA: Hard disk drive (HDD) manufacturers are repositioning themselves in this Great Recession, which will impact market share leadership in 2009, according to the report: “The Hard Disk Drive Industry: Market Analysis and Processing Trends”, recently published by The Information Network.

We pointed out in a press release of February 18, 2009 that Toshiba would move into first place in 2.5-inch hard drive with purchase of Fujitsu’s business. Now, two quarters later Western Digital could move into first place in the overall HDD business for calendar year 2009 on a unit basis.Source: The Information Network

“The market for 2009 is about product mix,” noted Dr. Robert Castellano, president of The Information Network. “Seagate 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, which are up in 2009.”

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

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

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