In the fast changing rigid disk drive industry, shipments are up, disk capacities are up, but sales revenues are up and down

Business Wire,  Oct 16, 1995  

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disk drive industry continues to ship more drives, with higher capacities, as it responds to growing demands for data storage with all types of computers.

The recently published 1995 DISK/TREND Report on rigid disk drives estimates 1995 worldwide shipments at 87.8 million units, up 25.5 percent over the previous year. The report forecasts continued industry growth in shipments during the next three years, with more than 132 million drives projected for 1998.

Disk drive capacities are also going up rapidly. Driven by new software requirements and expanding personal computer usage, unit shipments of disk drives in the 500 megabyte to 1 gigabyte range have passed up drives with lower capacities and are expected to increase 286 percent in 1995, totaling more than 42 million drives.

By 1998, disk drives in the 2-3 gigabyte range are forecasted to assume industry shipment leadership, with 58 million units in that year.

The industry's pattern of revenue growth is less consistent. Despite the continuing movement to higher drive capacities, prices go down in some years faster than shipments go up.

Changes in industry structure and product mix reduce average prices even further, as companies which make both disk drives and computers phase out older "captive" drive models. The result is a decline in the industry's total sales revenues even when unit shipments are increasing.

That is expected to happen in 1996, with a 1.4 percent reduction in total rigid disk drive sales to $25.3 billion, following two years of substantial revenue increases.

Here are other highlights from the 1995 DISK/TREND Report on rigid disk drives:

-- 3.5 inch drives provided 86 percent of the industry shipment total in 1994, with 60.3 million units. 3.5 inch unit shipments are expected to reach 110.6 million in 1998, as 3.5 inch drives continue to dominate shipments for desktop personal computers, network file servers and mainframe storage systems.

2.5 inch drives, most of which are used with notebook computers, are expected to increase shipments from 8.5 million drives in 1994 to more than 18 million in 1998. 5.25 inch drives, with 1994 shipments of only 792,000 drives after years of decline, are expected to see growing shipments during the next two years as new, low cost models appear.

Although shipment forecasts for 1.8 inch drives have been lowered, higher capacity models will help to increase demand by more than four times over the 1994 level, with shipments for 1998 projected at 990,000 drives.

-- 24 manufacturers of rigid disk drives are active in the industry today, down from 57 companies at the beginning of the decade. Nine companies left the rigid disk drive industry in the past year, replaced by only three new participants. Most of the dropouts had small market shares and were not able to compete efficiently as shipments rose and prices fell.

-- Noncaptive drive shipments, defined as shipments by independent companies which do not also make computer systems, provided 67.4 percent of the industry's 1994 sales revenues. The industry's market share for independent drive manufacturers has increased since the 1980s, as they have moved quickly to exploit technology advances and develop new markets.

Seagate Technology was again the leader in noncaptive sales revenues in 1994 with 27.7 percent of the world wide total. Quantum Corp. held second place with 21.3 percent, Conner Peripherals was third with 14.4 percent and Western Digital rose to fourth with 12.6 percent.

In addition to individual revenue and unit shipment projections for rigid disk drives in nine separate product groups, the DISK/TREND Report provides statistics on average noncaptive selling prices, competitive market shares of manufacturers, and a review of competing data storage technologies.

The report also contains basic product specifications on 487 disk drives and profiles on the 24 existing manufacturers of rigid disk drives, plus start-up firms and recent industry drop outs.

The new study on the worldwide rigid disk drive industry was released as part of the 1995 DISK/TREND Report, a detailed annual business review of the worldwide disk drive industry published by DISK/TREND Inc.

Separate reports on disk drive arrays and optical disk drives were released in April and August, and a new market study on removable data storage was distributed in September.

Subscriptions to the 1996 DISK/TREND Report, including the reports on disk drive arrays and removable data storage, plus the individual reports on optical and rigid disk drives, are available at $6,028 by contacting DISK/TREND Inc., 1925 Landings Drive, Mountain View, Calif., 94043. The individual report on rigid disk drives is priced at $2,435. -0-

                   Magnetic Rigid Disk Drives
                    Summary by Disk Diameter

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