History 2005: WW HDD Shipments Will Increase at 15.6%

The WW HDD industry will experience sustained unit and revenue growth through 2009, with particularly strong expansion of the CE and external drive/home storage segments, IDC reveals in its new study, Worldwide HDD Drive 2005-2009 Forecast: The Growth Is Sustainable, but the Industry Is in Transition.

WW HDD unit shipments and revenue will increase at a CAGR of 15.6% and 10.1% respectively from 2004 to 2009. WW CE HDD unit shipments will experience the fastest growth rate with a 37.4% CAGR over the same period.

“The HDD industry is looking at a period of sustained unit and revenue growth, but is now an industry in transition,” said David Reinsel, IDC ‘s director for storage research. “While traditional HDD markets are strong, the emerging markets in CE are key drivers both in demand and key dynamics. HDD-related suppliers need to reposition themselves now to capitalize on the resulting opportunities.”

IDC believes HDD industry-related vendors must increase R&D spending as well as capital investments to address the following needs: – expansion of manufacturing capacity in components and assembly, – transition to perpendicular magnetic recording and other component technologies.

This article is an abstract of news published on issue 210 on July 2005 from the former paper version of Computer Data  Storage Newsletter.