Hitachi GST: Fiscal 4Q11 Financial Results

We publish here only the results of Hitachi Ltd.
for its hard disk drive activity during the fourth
calendar quarter ended December 31, 2011. For Hitachi
it’s the third fiscal quarter of the year but the fourth one for
Hitachi GST (now Viviti Technologies), as the two entities do not have
the same fiscal year period.

Due to Thailand’s flooding,
revenues decrease 26% and units shipped 46% from 3Q11 to 4Q11. It was up 14% and down 8% for Seagate and down 26% and 51% for WD respectively for the same three-month periods. In Thailand, HGST assembles drives in Prachinburi, in Chonburi (with sub-contract manufacturer Saha Union), and produces disk media in Sarawak.

The three companies were profitable for the quarter. HGST also increased its prices, resulting an operating income of $120 million in 4Q11, vs. $180 million the former quarter for much lower sales.

HGST was mainly affected by the production of its mobile (-58% Q/Q) and desktop (-38% Q/Q) drives. But units shipped of enterprise HDDs are up 7% quarterly and 26% Y/Y.

For this last quarter of the year, Seagate leads the WW HDD market with 46.9 million HDDs shipped in front of WD with 28.5 million and HGST with 17,2 million. Last one is Toshiba wit around 19 million.

Finally, WD will get with HGST a profitable company with the possibility to be more powerful in all segments of the market, especially enterprise HDDs, and will be back the leader of this industry.

Hitachi GST revenues

(in $ millions)	4Q10	4Q11	FY10	FY11
Revenues	1,542	1,253	6,003	5,773
*Growth from previous year*		*-19%*		-4%
Operating income (loss)	104	120	645	464

(Source: Hitachi Ltd.)

HDDs shipped by Hitachi GST

(in thousands)	4Q10	4Q11	*Growth*	FY10	FY11	Growth
Notebook, CE 2.5-inch	16,300	8,400	*-48%*	65,300	61,100	-6%
Desktop, CE 3.5-inch	9,600	5,000	-48%	34,000	28,600	-16%
Enterprise	2,300	2,900	26%	7,400	9,800	32%
Emerging (automotive, etc)	1,090	370	-66%	3,530	2,190	-38%
External HDDs	1,040	540	-48%	3,460	2,930	-15%
TOTAL	30,330	17,210	-43%	113,690	104,620	-8%

(Source: Hitachi Ltd.)