167 Million HDDs for 88 Exabytes Shipped in 4Q10

Market research and consulting firm TrendFocus has just published its Storage Demand Analysis System CQ4 ’10 Quarterly Update, Executive Summary on the worldwide HDD market. Here is the introduction of this report:

Mobile HDDs
72.70 million shipped during the quarter, as this market rose 3.9% sequentially, and up 3.7% YTY. Holiday sales of notebook PCs fell short of expectations, which resulted in modest CQ4 figures. WDC widened its lead in this space with over 30% market share in CQ4. Seagate edged out HGST for second place with just over 20% market share. HGST, Toshiba and Samsung rounded out the space with 19%, 17%, and 14%, respectively. 29.3 exabytes shipped in mobile HDDs during CQ4.

Desktop HDDs
Desktop PC HDD shipments inched up 1.8% sequentially to 64.06 million in CQ4 ‘10. The end-of-the-year IT budget flush fueled corporate desktop PC sales, as this segment continues to perform ahead of projections. Sales of >=1TB products were exceptionally robust in CQ4, and the average capacity of desktop HDD rose from 655 GB to 755 GB from quarter-to-quarter. Total desktop HDD capacity shipped in CQ4 was 48.39 exabytes.

Enterprise HDDs
The enterprise market finally broke through the 8 million barrier for the first time in nine quarters, as unit shipments climbed to 8.16 million in CQ4. Demand for enterprise class HDDs improved steadily through 2010, and unit shipments are back to pre-recession levels. Looking forward, demand may succumb to seasonal trends in CQ1 before rebounding in subsequent quarters. Traditional enterprise HDDs shipped a total capacity of 2.56 exabytes.

Consumer Electronics (CE) HDDs
Seasonal pull patterns impacted CE HDD sales, and unit shipments pulled back as expected in CQ4. Shipments dropped 6.4% from quarter-to-quarter, to 22.39 million. The biggest falloff sequentially in terms of volume was the 2.5” segment, which declined over 13% Q-Q. 1.8” market had the largest QQ decrease percentage-wise at 46.2%; however, 1.8” HDD volumes are so small that despite the large percentage change, in terms of volume, it only amounted to a decline of 550,000 units. The 3.5” market grew sequentially, to 12.21 million, as sales of xVRs remained consistent in the December quarter. 7.99 exabytes shipped in CE HDDs during CQ4 ’10.

HDD Supplier CQ4 ’10
Market Share in Units

 (Source: TrendFocus)