Re: WD Establishes R&D in Singapore

He is an email from Damian Chan, Director, Electronics, Singapore Economic Development Board:
 
With regards to the Editor’s comments on the article, WD Establishes R&D in Singapore, published 25 Feb 2011, we would like to clarify a few points and share with you Singapore’s storage industry.
 
You rightfully point out that Singapore has deep history in connection to the hard disk drive industry. In the 80s and 90s, Singapore was an important player in the global HDD industry, shipping 45-50% of the global HDD volume. During that period, many of the major HDD makers in the world established their most significant or most advanced assembly operations in Singapore. However, due to intense competition within the HDD industry, HDD companies started seeking out lower cost locations to undertake the more labour intensive HDD assembly operations.
 
While HDD assembly activities slowed down in Singapore, a new related industry emerged – hard disk media manufacturing. Singapore’s hard disk media industry expanded rapidly from the 90s, rising from a global market share of 9.5% in the mid 90s to 41% today. Today, Singapore is a leading location for hard disk media production in the world with the top 3 HDD media producers – Seagate, Showa Denko, and WD as well (through its acquisition of Hoya’s media manufacturing assets in Singapore last year), having significant media manufacturing operations in Singapore. Furthermore, these companies have announced significant recent expansions in their media manufacturing operations here in Singapore. Seagate announced that it will build a third media manufacturing plant in Singapore in 2006, and Showa Denko announced a ¥ 15.5 billion investment in 2010 to expand its media manufacturing operations in Singapore.
 
Besides growing the hard disk media manufacturing sector, the Singapore government sought to diversify the HDD industry to move into R&D related activities. In addition to building up a pool of talent at our Universities, the government established the Magnetic Technology Centre in 1992, which was renamed the Data Storage Institute (DSI) in 1996. Leveraging Singapore’s pool of talent, companies such as Seagate have set up R&D facilities in Singapore. In addition, WD’s re-establishment of presence will also see a significant investments in R&D.
 
Singapore continues to be an important and key player in the global HDD industry. However, the activities undertaken have transformed. With more labour intensive HDD assembly slowly moving out of Singapore, we are moving towards hard disk media manufacturing and highly knowledge intensive R&D activities. The presence of top HDD companies undertaking and expanding the breadth and depth of their activities in Singapore is a testament to the value Singapore brings to the HDD industry.