Irvine disk drive maker Western Digital Corp. consolidated its market share lead over its biggest rival last year.
Western Digital ended the year with 31% of the market for disk drives that go into computers, laptops, portable storage drives and consumer electronics, according to data from El Segundo-based market researcher iSuppli Corp., a unit of Colorado’s IHS Inc.
That was up from 30% in 2009.
With 204 million drives sold, Western Digital boosted its lead over top rival Seagate Technologies LLC of Northern California.
Seagate had 29.7% of the drive market in 2010, down from 32% a year earlier, according to iSuppli.
In 2010, Seagate sold 195 million drives.
Rounding out the market was San Jose’s Hitachi Global Storage Technologies Ltd. at 17.6%, Japan’s Toshiba Corp. with 10.9% and South Korea’s Samsung Group at 9.6%.
A handful of others made up the remaining 1% or so.
Western Digital
• 2010 market share: 31%
• Drives sold: 204 million
• Revenue: $10 billion
• Projected 2011 sales: $9.3 billion
Seagate Technology
• 2010 market share: 29.7%
• Drives sold: 195 million
• Revenue: $11 billion
• Projected 2011 sales: $10.6 billion
By Revenue
Despite selling fewer drives, Seagate still rules by revenue. More of its sales come from pricier drives for high-end servers, desktop PCs and other corporate computers.
Seagate sold $11 billion worth of disk drives in 2010, up 9% from 2009.
Western Digital sold nearly $10 billion in drives, up 19%.
The bulk of Western Digital’s sales come from 2.5-inch drives that go into portable PCs and external storage devices used by consumers.
Portable PC sales grew 29% last year, according to Pennsylvania-based market researcher Information Network. Desktop PC sales grew 8% last year.
Western Digital could continue to steal share from Seagate as it moves deeper into selling higher-end drives, according to Mark Moskowitz of JP Morgan Chase & Co.
He downgraded Seagate’s shares a few weeks ago to “underweight” from “neutral.”
Seagate “could lose share due to both technology shifts and improving competition,” Moskowitz said.
Western Digital and others “are in qualification stages for supporting storage and server systems, which could mean the competition has improved,” Moskowitz said.
That’s against a backdrop of projected waning demand for consumer PCs in 2011.
“PC demand, especially consumer PC demand, continues to be weak,” said Kaushik Roy, an analyst at Wedbush Securities Inc. in San Francisco. “This weakness in consumer PCs is putting downward pressure on hard disk drive vendors.”
2011
Analysts expect Seagate to see 2011 sales of $10.6 billion, down 7% from 2010. Seagate had a recent market value of roughly $5.6 billion.
They’re looking for Western Digital to report sales of $9.3 billion, down 5% from a year earlier. It had a recent market value of $6.9 billion.
