Kingston Technology Co.’s reign at the top was brief.
The Fountain Valley-based memory products maker moved work out of Orange County last year, sliding the company into the No. 2 spot on the list of the county’s 25 biggest computer products makers. Kingston was the biggest OC employer on the list for a year.
Taking over the top spot on the Business Journal’s list was Western Digital Corp. The list ranks companies by OC workers.
Overall, the 25 companies grew local employment 3% to 8,169 workers during the past year. The list of 25 has nine estimates, including one for big mover Unisys Corp. at No. 3. Without estimates, employment would have been flat.
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Companywide employment increased 6% to 125,888 compared to last year. Revenue for the computer products makers climbed 12% to $50.9 billion.
Lake Forest-based disk drive maker Western Digital boosted its local employment by 4% to 975 workers during the past year to grab the top spot. Companywide employment rose 9% to 24,000.
Western Digital grew local employment on a big gain in sales during the past year. Revenue at the disk drive maker was up 24% to $4.2 billion for the year ended March 31.
The company has seen sales zoom with growing demand for laptop hard drives and set-top box hard drives, along with new products for consumers and businesses.
“It’s just a natural part of our growth,” spokesman Steve Shattuck said of the employee growth.
Most of the company’s recent hiring has gone to manufacturing sites in Malaysia and Thailand, while the OC offices have added more engineering, marketing and sales jobs.
Kingston, meanwhile, sent close to 100 OC jobs to Asia, including to a new Shanghai plant. The move was made primarily to reduce costs, spokeswoman Heather Skinner said.
Skinner said the move also put more production closer to suppliers and customers.
The reductions helped cut Kingston’s local employment by 11% to 872. The memory products maker kept stable its local engineering and marketing workers, among other non-manufacturing jobs.
“There are no plans to shift any more production overseas,” Skinner said. “We continue to have production here.”
Kingston’s sales rose 22% to $3 billion in 2005. The company has seen sales jump for its flash memory products, which consumers use to store information on digital cameras, audio players and other handheld devices, among other gadgets.
The company is the dominant seller of traditional DRAM,dynamic random access memory,products, which go into laptops and desktop computers.
Blue Bell, Pa.-based Unisys kept the No. 3 spot with an estimated 25% increase in local employment to 750.
Unisys, a tech consulting company and server maker, said last summer that it was consolidating its server group units at northern San Diego County’s Rancho Bernardo and Mission Viejo in OC. Last year, Unisys had 600 workers in Mission Viejo and 300 in Rancho Bernardo.
The company’s sales dipped 1% to $5.8 billion in 2005 while overall employment slipped 1% to 36,100. In the fall, Unisys said it planned to cut up to 10% of its workers companywide.
Toshiba America Information Systems Inc., which topped the list for years before being displaced last year, grabbed the No. 4 spot. The Business Journal estimated the Irvine computer products unit of Japan’s Toshiba Corp. kept employment flat at 650 workers during the past year.
A year earlier, Toshiba cut 28% of its workers at the information systems unit. The bulk of the cuts came when it shed its wireless networking and cable modem businesses, eliminating 150 jobs.
Gateway Adds Workers
Irvine-based computer maker Gateway Inc. saw its local employment climb 17% to 553 workers during the past year. The company moved up three spots to No. 5 on the gain.
Gateway, which has been posting losses amid price cuts and competition in the computer market, recorded a 13% rise in sales to $4.1 billion for the year ended March 31.
Gateway’s OC hiring included filling some open positions at its headquarters, said spokesman David Hallisey.
Gateway’s companywide employment fell 5% to 1,751 workers.
One big hire expected from Gateway this year: a chief executive.
Earlier this year, Wayne Inouye stepped down as chief executive after a disappointing quarter.
Chairman Richard Snyder, a former Gateway president who took the chairman’s spot after the 2005 retirement of founder Ted Waitt, now is interim chief executive.
At No. 6 was Cisco Systems Inc., which includes its Cisco-Linksys LLC unit in Irvine.
Linksys, a maker of home networking routers and other gear, boosted local employment by 2% to 370 people. Cisco’s local unit in Irvine has an estimated 180 workers, giving the San Jose-based company a total of 550 workers in OC.
The biggest change for Linksys during the past year: Founders Victor and Janie Tsao stepped down from running the Linksys unit to focus on Chinese investments for Cisco.
The Tsaos sold Linksys to Cisco three years ago.
J. Michael Pocock, who had headed Polaroid Corp. and its push into digital media, took over from the Tsaos.
Irvine-based Quantum Corp. fell to No. 7 from No. 5 last year after it cut local workers by 13% to 525. Quantum makes tape drives and other storage products.
The company has been working to increase “operational efficiencies” and decided to shift some OC manufacturing to lower-cost Colorado Springs, Colo., spokesman Brad Cohen said.
Engineering, product development, sales and marketing remains in OC.
Quantum expanded its OC holdings in early 2005 with the buy of Certance LLC of Costa Mesa, a former Seagate Technology LLC unit, for about $60 million.
No. 8 Aliso Viejo-based QLogic Corp., a maker of networking gear, slipped two spots on the list with a 10% reduction in local employees to 474.
QLogic’s overall employment climbed 8% to 925 on a 15% rise in sales to $494 million for the year ended March 31.
The company’s drop in local workers came as it sold its hard disk controller business to Marvell Technology Group Ltd. of Santa Clara. The gains in overall employment came largely from a pair of acquisitions.
A big sale happened on the computer products front last year. New York private equity firm Fenway Partners Inc. bought No. 13 Anaheim-based Targus Group International Inc., a maker of accessories and devices for portable computers, for $383 million.
Targus said its OC employment was up 13% to 225 workers, compared to a year earlier. Sales rose 20% to $450 million.
