Disk Drive Revenues on Rebound, Researcher Says

Following a decline in 2009, global revenue from shipments of both hard disk and optical drives is expected to rebound sharply in 2010, industry researcher iSuppli reported March 12.
The upswing for drives naturally follows that of personal computer shipments, which are starting to increase as the world economy improves and users choose to take advantage of newer, faster models at roughly the same prices as older machines.
Worldwide revenue from shipments of HDDs used in computer applications is expected to total about $28 billion in 2010, up more than 18 percent from $23.4 billion in 2009, iSuppli analyst for storage systems Fang Zhang said in a report.
Computer-oriented optical drive revenue will increase to about $15 billion in 2010, up 7.6 percent from $13.7 billion in 2009, Zhang reported. In comparison, computer-oriented hard drive revenue declined by 11.7 percent in 2009, while that of ODD decreased by 6.3 percent.
“The 2010 economic recovery will bring rising sales of PCs,” Zhang said. “The notebook sector is expected to be particularly strong, with shipments outgrowing those of desktops. This will drive the robust increase in HDD shipments.”
Purchases of new, more powerful servers and enterprise migrations to power-saving 2.5-inch HDDs in data centers to achieve cost reductions will also help drive sales, Zhang said.
The adoption of Microsoft’s Windows 7 operating system by enterprises is also helping to propel PC sales, Zhang said.