Hoya: Fiscal 2Q20 Financial Results

Hoya Corp. reported financial results for the second quarter of the fiscal year ending March 2021.

Revenue is ¥140.3 billion. This represents a decrease of ¥13.8 billion and a decrease of 9% compared to the previous year.

The company is involved in health care (eyeglasses/contact lenses), medical (IOLs/endoscopes/ artificial bone), electronics (LSI and FPD/HDD Substrates) and imaging.

It is the world’s biggest maker of glass disks for HDDs and Trendfocus estimates its WW market share in rigid disk media and substrate at 41% in 3Q20, large leader in front of WD, Seagate, Showa Denko and Fuji Electric.

Here are information on HDD substrates only.

Sales were down 10% from the previous year. 3.5″, which has continued to grow steadily and grew by more than 35%. On the other hand, 2.5″ is always going down, and 40% compared to last year, due to accelerated declines in the 2.5″ market, owing mainly to the adoption of SSDs in new game consoles.

3.5″ platters are on a steady increase, up 140% Y/Y. As a result, this was the first quarter in which 3.5″ sales turned the tables on 2.5″ sales.

About the 3.5″, current mass-production HDDs is 16TB models. The upcoming 18TB HDDs are in the end-user certification processes, and the firm is continuing to obtain HDD certification for substrates. Up to 18TB models, layer counts are unchanged from 16TB ones, so customer glass substrate adoption will be unchanged. For the following 20TB models, HDD manufacturers are trying to maintain the current layer count without increases; however, roadmaps going forward for 22TB and 24TB and such show layer increases or adopting HAMR.

Development
As demand for 2.5″ drives continues to decline, the firm believes that converting 2.5″ equipment to 3.5″ will be able to cover a fair portion of its numbers. This does not mean it needs to consider capacity beyond what it has at the new Laos plant at this time.

20TB offer growth potential in a big way going forward. There’s a question of whether 20TB drives will be done with 9 or 10 layers. The current situation is that 20TB is unachievable at current recording density unless it’s 10-layer. The options are that if you can increase recording density by about 7% or 8% and stay at 9 layers, you can get away with one gen of aluminium; if not, then it’s glass. The company thinks it will be able to determine whether it will be able to pack it in technologically in this coming year based on whether or not 20TB drives use glass.