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Storage Resources

Disk Drive Estimates for CQ2 2005 and Updated Projections for 2005 (8/15/2005)

2005 is a very unusual year for the hard disk drive industry.  Shipments in the first half of 2005 are estimated to total about 180 M units of all form factors and for all applications.  Shipments in calendar Q2 2005 are estimated at 91.5 M units, up 2.9% from the prior quarter.  Calendar Q2 2005 is usually the slowest quarter of the year! Much of the additional growth in the second quarter is from the Consumer Electronics (CE) market segment, particularly the recordable TV program market (DVR/PVR/STB markets). 

Compared to other consumer electronic products, set-top boxes (STBs) with DVR/PVR capability are shipped as part of a cable or satellite service package which is not as seasonal as other CE products.  This probably accounts at least in part for the strength of consumer electronic hard disk drives in the second quarter.

Table 1 and Figure 1 shows a new overall disk drive forecast by market segment from 2004 to 2010.  Table 2 shows disk drive form factor forecasts for the same period.  Note that by 2010 we expect that 3.5-inch disk drives will only comprise about 45% of the total market with 1.8-inch or smaller disk drives having a 27% market share.  Clearly by the end of the decade smaller form factor disk drives will dominate, particularly in new disk drive applications.  We have increased our projections for total future drives from those in early July.  This is based on apparent strength in desktop and mobile computers.


TABLE 1.  DISK DRIVE FORECAST BY SEGMENT, 2004-2010 (UNITS IN 000)






FIGURE 1.  DISK DRIVE FORECAST BY SEGMENT, 2004-2010





TABLE 2.  DISK DRIVE FORECAST BY FORM FACTOR, 2004-2010 (UNITS IN 000)




Table 3 and Figure 2 shows our projection for disk drives used for various consumer electronics applications.  We note particular strength in PVR/DVR/STBs with AV players being the next largest category.  By 2010 we project that about 41% of the total disk drives shipped will go into consumer applications.

TABLE 3.  DISK DRIVE CONSUMER ELECTRONICS FORECAST, 2004-2010 (UNITS IN 000)

FIGURE 2. BREAKDOWN OF HDD IN CONSUMER DEVICES, 2004-2010



In Table 4 and Table 5 we give HDD shipment numbers by application and form factor for calendar Q1 2005.  Tables 6 & 7 show HDD shipment numbers by application and form factor for Q2 2005.

Table 4.  Calendar Q1 2005 Disk Drive ShipmentS (Units in Millions)

Table 5.   Calendar Q1 2005 Disk Drive Form Factor Shipments (Units in Millions)

Table 6.  Calendar Q2 2005 Shipment Projections (Units in Millions)

Table 7.   Calendar Q2 2005 Disk Drive Form Factor Projections (Units in Millions)





Figures 3 shows the percentage of the total drives from each manufacturer for 1H 2005.  Figure 4 shows the percentage of Mobile Computer drives while Figures 5-7 show the percentages of CE, Desktop and traditional Enterprise drives for 1H 2005.Shipments for the first half of 2005 came to about 180 M units.  Although we projected in early July that total shipments for 2005 could total between 280 and 290 M units we are pulling back a bit from this projection based upon comments by several of the drive vendors about difficulties getting sufficient disks.  We are thus now projecting 379 M units for all of 2005.  FIGURE 3.  Calendar 1H 2005 company percentage of all drives




 FIGURE 4.   Calendar H1 2005 company percentage of mobile computer drives 
 

FIGURE 5.   Calendar H1 2005 company percentage of Consumer electronic drives 
 

FIGURE 6.   Calendar H1 2005 company percentage of Desktop Computer drives

 

FIGURE 7.   Calendar H1 2005 company percentage of TrADITIONAL  ENTERPRISE  drives

Table 8 and 9 show our annual projections for heads and media while Figures 8, 9, and 10 (from Pixie Pinnacle) show market share for heads, media, and motors in Q1 2005. 

Table 8.  MAGNETIC HEAD PROJECTIONS (2004-2010)        

Table 9.  MAGNETIC MEDIA PROJECTIONS (2004-2010)






Figure 8.  CQ1 2005 Head market breakdown
 






Figure 9.  CQ1 2005 Disk market breakdown






Figure 10.  CQ1 2005 Motor market breakdown

Tom Coughlin
President
Coughlin Associates
www.tomcoughlin.com