Hard Drive Shipments Rebound to Record Level in 2012

A year after the Thailand flooding disaster partially derailed production, the global hard disk drive (HDD) industry has fully recovered, with shipments to the computer market expected to hit a record level this year, driven by the enterprise market as well as the arrival of the Windows 8 operating system, reports IHS iSuppli.

HDD shipments in 2012 for the overall computer market, including PCs, are forecast to reach 524.0 million units, up 4.3 percent from 502.5 million units last year, according to an IHS iSuppli Storage Space Market Brief from information and analytics provider IHS (NYSE: IHS).

The 2012 number will be the highest shipment figure on record in the HDD books at year-endbut the achievement will not stand for long. In fact, HDD shipments are projected to climb continually, the stellar results of each year bested by the next in predictable but welcome fashion until at least 2016. By then, HDD shipments will hit 575.1 million units, as shown in the figure below.

The forecast includes HDD shipments only to the PC compute segment, which includes client HDDs for desktops and notebooks on the one hand, and enterprise HDDs for servers and storage systems on the other. The forecast does not include HDD shipments for other applications such as in automotive, external hard drives or DVR devices.

In contrast to the glowing performance of HDDs for the PC space, annual HDD consumer-related shipments will decline this year from 2011 levels. Further details are available at the link below.