Seagate and Western Digital lead the small pack of remaining hard disk drive manufacturers in the second quarter. According to IHS iSuppli research, the competitors made up a combined 63 percent of global HDD shipments. Western Digital eked out a one-point lead against Seagate to take the top spot, but it's a tight race.
Combined shipments totaled just over 167 million units by the end of June, said the research group - a 4 percent bump over the previous quarter. Seagate HDDs comprised more than 52 million of that tally, while Western Digital shipped nearly 54 million units. Both saw overall shipment increases at 7 and 6 percent respectively. IHS declared it a record-breaking quarter for the latter.
The remaining 61 million or so HDDs were shipped by Hitachi GST (16 percent), Toshiba/Fujitsu (11 percent) and Samsung (10 percent) said IHS. It's important to note that Hitachi GST was acquired in March by Western Digital. It remains an independent company pending the deal's closure, but ultimately its consolidation helps cement Western Digital's top spot. Additionally, Seagate bought out Samsung's HDD division in April and Toshiba purchased Fujitsu's back in 2009.
In essence, there are now only three HDD competitors vying for consumer dollars.
Fang Zhang, storage systems analyst at IHS, played down the negative effects of the massive earthquake which struck areas of Japan earlier this year in his appraisal of recent HDD market conditions.
"Despite some disruptions resulting from the Japan quake disaster in March and the continuing decline of netbook sales because of tablet devices, HDD shipments rose during the second quarter, with each hard drive maker meeting its revenue forecast," said Zhang. "Growth was achieved partially from a pull-in of orders by PC manufacturers fearing a potential shortage of components from the quake's impact, and also by suppliers utilizing less expensive sea freight to ship goods instead of costly air freight."
Citing back to school bustle and early holiday shopping, IHS expects HDD shipments to fare even better this quarter with a predicted growth of 3.4 percent.
