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Surging demand augurs record sales for computer drives

Global sales of computer disk drives may rise to a record next year on surging demand for storage devices in digital music players and other consumer electronics products, market researcher IDC said.

"There is a potential that revenue in the disk drive industry will exceed the record US$27 billion achieved in 1997," David Reinsel, director for storage research at IDC, told an industry conference in Bangkok today. Disk-drive sales reached US$23 billion last year, he said.

Seagate Technology and Western Digital Corp, the world's biggest disk-drive makers, have increased sales of their devices for use in portable music players, gaming consoles and DVD recorders, expanding beyond desktop and laptop computers.

Seagate said sales for its third quarter ending April 1 will rise 35 percent to US$1.87 billion.

By quantity, disk drive sales may reach almost 400 million units next year from about 300 million units last year, according to IDC.

"The biggest demand has come from consumer electronics such as MP3 players," Reinsel said.

Separately, Global Sources said in its latest market report that Taiwan's optical disc-drive suppliers are shifting toward higher-end production due to falling margins on CD-format products.

The Global Sources report dated March 2 said Taiwanese makers expect to ship 28 million DVD rewritable drives this year, up 65 percent from last year.

Taiwanese makers this year expect to ship 100 million optical drives and 11 billion discs, which represent 42 percent and 70 percent respectively of all global shipments, according to the report.
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