Lake Forest-based Western Digital Corp., the top maker of disk drives for computers and consumer electronics, has struck a deal to produce its products in Brazil.
Western Digital said Thursday it has contracted with Brazilian contract electronics maker Digitron da Amazonia Industria e Comercio Ltda. to produce and distribute Western Digital drives in Latin America’s largest economy.
Digitron is best known for making circuit boards for computers. The company landed an investment from Intel Corp. a few years back.
The Western Digital deal is expected to produce an estimated $175 million worth of drives in the first year and create 50 jobs in Brazil.
Up to now, Western Digital has imported drives for sale in Brazil. The company is tapping Digitron to better serve customers in a growing market, according to Western Digital.
“The strategic decision to expand our global manufacturing operations into Brazil positions WD to more efficiently meet growing customer demand as we invest in the development of this key market,” Chief Operating Officer Tim Leyden said. “The new operations are part of a multiyear project to strengthen and diversify WD’s manufacturing base while increasing our footprint in one of the world’s most exciting markets.”
Western Digital makes disk drives that go into computers, servers, external storage drives and other consumer electronics.
The company shipped some 50 million drives in the three months through June, making it the top maker of drives.
Western Digital has yearly sales of $9.6 billion.
The company’s shares surged in Thursday afterhours trading on word that key rival Seagate Techology PLC of Northern California has received a buyout offer to take the company private.
Western Digital’s shares were up 8% in afterhours trading to a market value of nearly$7 billion.
Seagate, the No. 2 drive maker, said Thursday it’s in talks about going private, presumably in a private equity buyout. The company didn’t offer details.
The news sent Seagate’s shares up 20% before trading was halted.
