Production Discipline Cuts HDD Shipments to 133 Million in 2Q13 – Trendfocus

Here the figures are estimates and are intended for preliminary guidance only. Final shipments numbers and ASPs will be published in Trendfocus’ CQ1 ’13 Quarterly.

Preliminary CQ2 ’13 Results:
Weaker Seasonal Demand, Production
Discipline Cut HDD Shipments Slightly to 133 Million
PCs continue weak demand trend,
but may see very modest seasonal increases in 2H ’13;
enterprise still growing

By Trendfocus, Inc.

3.5" Desktop/CE HDDs
49M units, down approximately 3M from CQ1 ’13. Desktop/CE HDD showed the greatest downward movement of any segment in CQ2, mostly on much weaker than expected desktop PC shipments. 3.5" CE HDDs for DVR continued to hold on to fairly steady demand, resulting in a total segment decline. Consumer desktop units, especially new all-in-one (AIO) PCs should see a slight seasonal boost in 2H ’13, but commercial demand for desktop PCs will likely remain weak through much of the remainder of the year, except for the possibility of some end-of-year (budget flushing) purchasing activity.

2.5" Mobile/CE HDDs
68M units, flat from CQ1. Despite a slight improvement in ODM notebook system builds in May, demand for PCs remains very weak and PC OEMs are looking toward deploying new Windows 8 touch-based models across all price bands in 2H ’13 in hopes of stabilizing, what has been to date, a continued softening of the market on a year-over-year basis. However, preparation for CQ3 back-to-school demand plus the new Sony and Microsoft gaming console announcements (containing 500GB 2.5" HDDs) provided enough demand to keep sequential shipments nearly flat to the prior quarter.

3.5"/2.5" Enterprise HDDs
Nearly 17M units, up 5% sequentially. Traditional performance enterprise shipments held fairly steady from the prior quarter while nearline HDDs for capacity enterprise storage and hyperscale applications continued demand momentum. Nearline HDD shipments appear to have broken through the 9 million unit mark – this time on real demand and not artificially inflated based on post-Thailand flood volume purchase agreements.

                  HDD Shipped in Million

* Final figures
** Estimations

Seagate

• Preliminary shipment estimate: over 54 million (down marginally)
• 3.5" desktop/CE shipments eased to 24 million HDDs, reflective of weak desktop PC sales.
• Mobile/CE HDD held at 22 million in CQ1.
• Enterprise HDDs lifted to just above 8 million in the quarter.

Toshiba

• Preliminary shipment estimate: 19+ million (down marginally from CQ1)
• 3.5" desktop shipments remained at under 3 million units.
• Mobile/CE shipments were approximately 15 million units.
• Enterprise volumes (mission critical and business critical) grew sequentially topping just over 1 million.

Western Digital

• Preliminary shipment estimate: approximately 60 million (flat sequentially)
• Desktop/CE unit sales declined by 1 million HDDs to 21 million units.
• 2.5" mobile/CE HDD shipments dipped slightly from the prior quarter to 29 million units.
• Enterprise demand increased slightly to nearly 8 million on nearline HDD strength.