After Hutchinson in HDD Suspensions, WD Stops Production in Thailand …
In its larger disk drive assembly plants
This is a Press Release edited by StorageNewsletter.com on October 12, 2011 at 2:51 pmWestern Digital Corp. announced that production of hard drives in its facilities close to Bangkok, Thailand, will be constrained in the current quarter due to the severe flooding in Thailand.
The flooding is causing problems with the region’s infrastructure, including transportation and utilities, and has resulted in the inundation of some supplier facilities and employee homes. The company is gratified to report that its approximately 37,000 Thailand-based employees are deemed safe at this time.
The company is working with its suppliers to maximize throughput and availability of parts in order to best meet the needs of its customers.
In the quarter ending July 1, 2011, WD shipped approximately 54 million hard drives from its facilities in Thailand and Malaysia, with approximately 60 percent coming from its Thailand sites. The company’s Thailand operations source much of its supply of components from local suppliers.
While WD’s facilities in Thailand are operational, production has been suspended on a temporary basis to protect its employees and its facilities and equipment against water ingress. The company indicated that conditions associated with the continued flooding are evolving quickly and the extent of the impact on its operations in Thailand cannot yet be fully determined.
The company will provide further updates on the situation, including on its investment community conference call on Wednesday, October 19, 2011.
Read also:
Hutchinson Operations in Thailand Temporarily Suspended
Due to rising floodwaters
Comments
Seagate also has HDD assembly plants in Thailand (Tepauk and Korat) but far from the flood zone. Anyway, it could be impact by supplies of motors and suspensions.
Ben A. Reitze from Barclays Capital, wrote: "While it is too soon to determine what the impact on the drive industry will be, we believe that there will ultimately be some near-term disruptions to production as component makers sort through the damage and look to shift production to other regions. If one were to assume the situation lasts a week, there could be a production disruption of 10-15 million drives. As a result, we believe that this situation could lead to some downside to our current CQ4 TAM forecast of 181 million units due to supply constraints."
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