In their Q3 2012 quarterly earnings call, Seagate posted total drive shipments in the quarter that ended in March of 61 million units, which is 29% greater than the prior quarter. These shipments translate into 42 exabytes in total capacity shipped and $4.4 billion in revenue. Seagate credits their shipment growth to recovery in the mobile client computing market. The enterprise mission-critical segment has also nearly fully recovered for Seagate, while client desktop and business-critical drive supply continues to be constrained, most likely through the fall.
Market Breakdown
Seagate shipped 61 million units in the quarter, the shipments break down into three categories:
- Enterprise – 7,390,000
- Client Compute – 43,830,000
- Client Non-Compute – 9,520,000
Samsung Impact
Seagate is seeing early benefits from the Samsung acquisition. Samsung-branded shipments made up 13% of Seagate’s drive shipments in the quarter. The deal also has increased Seagate’s manufacturing capacity and have increased their engineering design headcount by 25% in their Korean design center.
Flood Recovery
Seagate generally sees a near full recovery from the devastating Thailand floods as this calendar year closes. They’re certainly in pretty good shape now though. In terms of efficiency, Seagate is manufacturing 10 hard drives per second. The total hard drive market will continue to grow through the year, but retail pricing will likely remain where it is until the hard drive manufacturers in aggregate can meet total supply demands.
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