History (1998): New Plant for IBM in Prachinburi, Thailand

IBM was already present in Thailand as a HDD manufacturer, through a factory in Saha Union.

And once again it has chosen Thailand for its new plant, IBM Storage Products (Thailand), inaugurated in April in Prachinburi.

Initial investment was $560 million for a plant which, once it reaches full production, should be able to assemble 4.5 million 2.5-inch or 3.5-inch units per year.

Add to that the Saha Union facility, and IBM will hit a maximum output in Thailand of 8 million drives per year, nearly 6% of the WW annual HDD production.

According to the Bangkok Post, IBM expects to have $2 billion in revenue generated by the 2 manufacturing bases in Thailand by the end of the year, or around 3% of total Thai exports.

IBM SPT currently employs 900 people, and should expand to 2,000 employees by the end of the year.

This article is an abstract of news published on issue 124 on May 1998 from the former paper version of Computer Data Storage Newsletter.

Note: The plant was transferred to Hitachi Global Storage Technologies founded on 2003, as a merger of the HDD businesses of IBM and Hitachi. Hitachi paid IBM $2.05 billion for its HDD business.