History (1996): Record of 225 Million Hard Disk Platters Shipped in 1995

The rigid disk media industry set all-time shipment and revenue records in 1995, with unit sales of 255 million disks for revenue of $3.3 billion, according to the 1996 Rigid Disk Media Information Service published by Trendfocus (Palo Alto, CA).

The outlook for the balance of the 1990s is positive, as the industry is expected to grow at a rate of 24% through 1999.

“The 30% sequential growth in both shipments and revenue is one of the better annual performances in the industry’s history, and augurs well for the balance of the decade,” stated Mark Geenen, president, Trendfocus. “Clearly, disk media companies are pillars of the rigid disk drive industry, and providers of a critical, enabling technology to rigid disk drive vendors.”

95mm or 3.5-inch disk shipments surpassed 200 million units in 1995, easily the top position. 65mm media, bound for 2.5-inch drives, did not ship to expected levels due to slower-than-anticipated demand for portable storage products.

Demand for 130mm media, for use in 5.25-inch drives, began to turn around as low-profile, low-cost 5.25-inch products began to ramp into high-volume production.

US vendors were dominant, but Japanese suppliers made significant market share gains.

“The industry’s manufacturing capacity was unable to meet demand for HDD media in 1995. Consequently, most suppliers have announced massive factory city later in the 1990s, future demand is quite robust and will support numerous disk suppliers worldwide. Additionally, the billions spent on capital equipment will benefit the wide supplier base to the disk drive industry,” added Geenen.

By 1999, over 600 million rigid disks will be sold worldwide, with revenues expected to surpass $7 billion.

This article is an abstract of news published on the former paper version of Computer Data Storage Newsletter on issue 99, published on April 1996.