Erica Yen, Taipei; Joseph Tsai

 

Hard drive supply volumes in the first quarter of 2012 are expected to increase from 110-120 million units in the fourth quarter of 2011 to 140 million units, helping to reduce the supply gap from 30-35% in the fourth quarter of 2011 to 17-18% as global hard drive demand each quarter is currently at about 170 million units.

As Seagate and Western Digital have both recently raised their shipment and revenue forecast for the fiscal second quarter of 2012 (October-December, 2011), indicating the recovery of hard driver capacity may be faster than original expectations.

Seagate expects its hard drive shipments in the fourth quarter of 2011 will reach 43 million units with revenues in the quarter to reach US$2.8 billion and gross margins 26%. Meanwhile, Western Digital expects its shipments will reach 26 million units and to achieve its revenue goal of US$1.8 billion.

In addition to Japan-based hard drive motor maker Nidec has already resumed 80% of its production capacity, Western Digital also has small parts of its plants have already resumed operations and despite the rest of capacity is unlikely to recover until after March 2012, the current recovery status is already much better than the company's original expectation.