History (1999): $359 Million Invested by Seagate in Manufacturing Facilities in Perai and Ipoh, Malaysia

Seagate Technology’s Asia offices have announced a $359 million investment over the next 5 years in its manufacturing facilities in Perai and Ipoh, Malaysia.

In order to reduce costs, HDD makers now tend to transfer production from Singapore to countries where labor is less expensive.

This is also the case for Western Digital, which plans to shift the bulk of its desktop drive operations from Singapore to Malaysia, near Kuala Lumpur, where the manufacturer already has a plant. WD’s Singapore facility will now handle only the assembly of high-end units as well as a portion of the desktop units co-developed with IBM.

This article is an abstract of news published on issue 139 on August 1999 from the former paper version of Computer Data Storage Newsletter.