Hitachi GST: Fiscal 4Q10 Financial Results

We publish here only the results of Hitachi Ltd.
for its hard disk drive activity during fourth fiscal quarter and year ended on December 31, 2010.

Hard disk drives (Hitachi GST) revenues in ¥ billions

	4Q09	4Q10	FY09	FY10
Revenues	125.0	127.4	451.7	526.8
*Growth from previous year*		2%		17%
Operating income (loss)	12.3	8.6	9.2	57.2

(Source: Hitachi Ltd.)

Hard disk drives (Hitachi GST) revenues in U.S. $ millions

	4Q09	4Q10	FY09	FY10
Revenues	1,394	1,542	4,821	6,003
*Growth from previous year*		*11%*		25%
Operating income (loss)	137	104	106	645

(Source: Hitachi Ltd.)

Hard disk drives (Hitachi GST) in number of units

(in thousands)	4Q09	4Q10	*Growth*	FY09	FY10	Growth
Notebook, CE 2.5-inch	14,400	16,300	*13%*	50,600	65,300	29%
Desktop, CE 3.5-inch	7,100	9,600	35%	31,700	34,000	7%
Enterprise	1,700	2,300	35%	5,500	7,400	35%
Emerging (automotive, etc)	840	1,090	30%	2,070	3,530	71%
External HDDs	880	1,040	18%	1,550	3,460	*233%*
TOTAL	24,920	30,330	22%	91,420	113,690	24%

(Source: Hitachi Ltd.)

Comments

Hitachi GST is the third manufacturer of HDDs in the world but is growing much faster from the last calendar quarter of 2009 to the same period in 2010.

In units shipped, HGST grew 22% to 30.3 million, WD 5% to 52.2 million and Seagate was down 2% to 48.9 million.

In revenues, the percentage are 11%, -5% and -10% respectively for the three companies.

HGST accomplish a remarkable growth in enterprise drives taking market shares from Seagate and even beating it in the number of 2.5-inch notebook HDDs shipped for the three-month period.

The real weakness of the Japanese maker is in 3.5-inch desktop drives with only 9.6 million devices shipped but with a superior year-to-year growth, 7%, compared to its two biggest rivals.