Record HDD exports forecast

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Record HDD exports forecast

Global recovery, social networks spur orders

Published: 31/03/2010 at 12:00 AM

Newspaper section: Business

 

Thailand is on pace for record hard-disk drive (HDD) exports this year, with their value rising 10% to nearly 500 billion baht on the global rebound and an explosion in online social networking.

 

HDD exports provided about 5% of Thailand's gross domestic product in 2007 and 2008 with values of 445 billion and 461 billion baht, respectively, said Sampan Silapanad, vice-president of Western Digital (Thailand).

 

But exports slumped to 413 billion baht or 4.56% of Thai GDP last year as the industry dealt with the global recession. About 100 billion baht, or 27% of export value, benefited Thailand in terms of value added, said Mr Sampan.

 

Seagate Technology, the world's largest HDD maker, said Thailand was poised to gain from rapid growth in global HDD demand in 2010 and in years to come as worldwide manufacturing of 1.5 million drives a day is dominated by Thai production.

 

The industry bounced back relatively quickly from recession in 2008 and 2009, said Jeffrey Nygaard, vice-president and country manager of Seagate's Thailand operations, one of the US company's biggest manufacturing bases. Demand for storage is expected to drive worldwide shipments of 650 to 670 million HDD units this year, an increase of 15% from 590 million units last year, he said.

 

Mobile wireless, data analytics, digital video and system density have driven storage in 2009 to 2011, while cloud computing will play a major role in increasing demand for storage from the second half of 2010 to 2012.

 

Internet traffic has shot up and is forecast to top 56 exabytes (one exabyte is 1 billion Gb) per month in 2013, against an estimated 21 exabytes currently, said Mr Nygaard.

 

"The economy in Asia is growing very rapidly along with the continuing increase in population and internet usage. These provide a bright future for the HDD industry in Thailand to generate significant revenue both financially and intellectually," he said.

 

"What Thailand needs to do is develop technology capability and the right type of research and development to grow value-added and lower the manufacturing costs of international players that have set up production here."

 

Thailand is home to the world's top four HDD makers - Seagate, Western Digital (WD), Hitachi Global Storage Technologies, and Toshiba Storage Devices.