$US33 Billion by 2011 Says HDD is Far from Dead
$US33 Billion by 2011 Says HDD is Far from Dead
March 28, 2007: Market research reveals the hard disc drive market is far from dead; it’s just facing a few disruptions, fighting off an overblown threat from flash and innovating on its storage capacity.
TRENDFOCUS’ Storage Demand Analysis System 2007 reveals the HDD industry can expect to grow to over $US 33 billion by 2011 and ship 2.5 billion HDDs over the next five years.
With manufactures undergoing a transition to perpendicular magnetic recording (PMR,) the market can expect to see storage capacities increase by a factor of ten in the next few years. TRENDFOCUS points to the example of desktop PCS using an average of 148 GB of HDD storage in 2006, with the added benefit of PMR, users can expect PC storage capacities to cross the 500 GB mark by 2010.
Even more promising, TRENDFOCUS says we can expect PCs carrying one terabyte capacities to become increasingly common over the next few years.
Mark Greenen, president of TRENDFOCUS says HDD, is facing an overblown threat from the flash community. “Although there are many common markets, the two technologies will not frequently clash,” he says. “In fact, the HDD industry will probably be healthier financially.”
Overall, HDD’s future success comes down to innovation and demand. “Storage capacities are rising 40 percent annually, while costs are coming down,” says Greenen.“Demand from both the personal computer market and the expanding base of HDD-enabled CE devices will support tremendous growth through the decade.”
The continued demand is due to be driven by consumer electronics and the PC market. With swiftly developing countries like India and China raring into the PC and server market, HDD can expect continued success. On top of this, mobile PC sales are expected to drive an industry shift to smaller HDDs, with personal video recorders, navigation systems and digital audi/video players also driving rapid expansion.
TRENDFOCUS found Seagate Technology to currently be leading the market with an overall share of 30 percent. Western Digital, Hitachi, Samsung, Fujitsu also remain competitive.