WD HDD production meets predicted customer HDD demand

Western Digital announced that it has managed to restore most of its production capacity since the devastating floods last October. In the first quarter of this year, of which its Hitachi Global Storage Technologies (GST) subsidiary started shipping for WD during the final 3.5 weeks, it has sold 44.2 million hard disks, delivering revenue of $3.0 billion (including that from Hitachi GST) and a net income of $483 million. The average HDD sold for $68.

In the final quarter of 2011, Western Digital shipped just 28.5 million hard drives, delivering revenue of $2.0 billion and net income of $145 million. Despite what appears like a poor sales period over that quarter, the higher drive prices helped bring up the net income, especially during this year’s first quarter. During this quarter a year ago, Western Digital shipped 49.8 HDDs, delivering just slightly higher revenue of $2.3 billion and a similar net income of $146 million, in comparison to the final quarter of 2011.

According to an executive officer of Western Digital, they have restored production capacity to the point where it is able to adequately meet predicted customer demand in the current quarter and beyond. Hitachi also suffered badly from the blooding before becoming a part of WD, so Western Digital will need to work hard to restore Hitachi GST’s manufacturing capacity. Western Digital is expected to fully store its full production capacity of its facilities by June, possibly also followed by Hitachi GST.

Even if Western Digital fully restores its full production capacity by June to pre-flood levels, there is no clear sign of HDD prices dramatically falling, at least not to anywhere to levels before the floods, especially after Seagate’s news that their HDD prices will remain above pre-flood levels for the foreseeable future.