The Verge - Thailand flood disaster: how it's affecting companies, employees, and their products

HDD prices could drop by 10 percent at the end of April

2012-03-30T18:32:05Z

Hard disk drive prices are expected to fall by around 10 percent this time next month, according to industry sources speaking to DigiTimes. The price of HDDs has been abnormally high following widespread flooding in Thailand last October, which caused a severe shortage in supply as production lines were destroyed by water damage. Western Digital's factories were directly affected, causing its prices to rise by 47 percent, and a number of suppliers to Seagate were also hit as its CEO Steve Luczo described back in November.

While a return to the pricing of a year ago is unlikely due to rising costs of production, it's still comforting to hear that supply is predicted to pre-flood levels of around 175 million units per quarter by Q3 this...

Western Digital and Toshiba trade hard drive tech, clearing the way for WD / Hitachi merger

2012-02-29T02:41:41Z

Today, Western Digital just agreed to give Toshiba the equipment and intellectual property required to build consumer-grade 3.5-inch hard drives, but Toshiba won't be paying in cash. In exchange, the Japanese storage company will give Western Digital a 2.5-inch HDD facility that's been shut down since the Thailand flood disaster late last year. It sounds like a crazy deal, until you remember what's at stake: Western Digital needed to divest part of its 3.5-inch hard drive business in order to satisfy the European Union's conditions for a merger with Hitachi this year.

Since Seagate already bought Samsung's hard drive business, the thought process went, a WD / Hitachi merger would leave the hard drive industry with only two major players...

Seagate's hard drive shortage from Thailand floods expected to continue throughout 2012

2012-02-01T13:48:37Z

Seagate released its Q2 2012 (fiscal year) results yesterday, and not surprisingly the company had some statements to make about the effect the Thailand flooding had on its business. The company acknowledged that hard drive shortages will most likely continue throughout the calendar year of 2012, with supply trailing demand by about 150 million units by the end of 2012. From an industry-wide perspective, Seagate said that 119 million drives were shipped overall, short of estimated demand for 175 million drives. These shortages have led to Seagate observing some shifts in how customers order its products — the company is making more long-term deals to lock down pricing, with some deals running multiple years, which is a trend that...

Nvidia and AMD blame hard drive shortages for poor GPU sales

2012-01-25T06:11:25Z

Yes, you read that headline right: despite the fact that neither AMD nor Nvidia manufacture a product that requires a magnetic drive, both claim that the hard drive shortages that resulted from the 2011 Thailand flood disaster impacted their ability to sell graphics processors, and ultimately their bottom line. Both AMD CEO Rory Read and Nvidia CEO Jen-Hsun Huang had said last quarter that they didn't expect any impact at all from the floods — "it's really a non-factor," said Huang — but Nvidia just told the world that it may have earned roughly $116 million less revenue than the company originally expected due to the hard drive shortage (as well as Tegra 2 decline), and AMD told investors that it saw "a little bit of pressure in...

Western Digital hard drive prices rose 47 percent after Thai floods

2012-01-24T17:11:01Z

The floods in Thailand certainly had an effect on hard drive supplies and prices, and now Western Digital's earnings report for Q1 2012 attaches some hard numbers to the impact. Although prices rose 47 percent to $69 per unit over last year, WD sold 23.7 million fewer hard drives, a 45 percent drop. Some of that price jump can be attributed to increased manufacturing costs, but most of it went to towards profit with a gross margin increase to 32.5 percent over last year's 19.2. Overall, WD reported $199 million in expenses related to the floods and $2 billion in total revenue, down about half a billion dollars from last year. The company says its factories in Thailand should be back to pre-flood capacities by September 2012, with...

Intel lowers Q4 revenue expectations as a result of Thailand flooding

2011-12-12T16:15:02Z

Intel announced this morning that the company is lowering revenue expectations for the fourth quarter to $13.7 billion. While its estimate was originally pegged at $14.7 billion, the chip maker cites hard drive shortages resulting from Thailand's flooding crisis as the direct cause of the reduced forecast. PC manufacturers are cutting microprocessor inventory and placing less orders in response to the dwindling HDD availability — a disappointing development in a quarter which otherwise is expected to see an uptick in PC sales.

Intel will be holding a conference call in just a bit, and we'll updating with any further developments.

Sony to start shipping NEX-7 this month, manufacturing recovering after Thai floods

2011-12-08T06:00:13Z

Sony Japan announced today that after severe floods in Thailand crippled its production, the NEX-7 will begin shipping to a lucky few pre-order customers before the end of the year. That's a month earlier than Sony had originally stated, a good sign that Sony's manufacturing is finally getting back to normal. Production is still severely limited, though, so If you've been thinking about splurging for the $1,349 mirrorless shooter, now's a good time to reserve your spot in line. Here's Sony's official statement:

"Sony USA is happy to announce that limited quantities of the new NEX-7 camera will begin shipping to pre-order customers this month. Overall production capacity remains restrained as a result of the recent floods in...

Sony NEX-7 to be available in January, but supply affected by Thai floods

2011-11-29T19:14:20Z

It's been a long and torturous wait for Sony's delayed 24-megapixel Alpha NEX-7, but there's hope: Sony USA COO Phil Molyneux says the NEX-7 will arrive in January. Molyneux also said that "supply is an issue" for the Alpha range because of the devastating floods in Thailand, but that the NEX-C3 is now available and the NEX-5N has limited availability — although he thinks Sony underestimated demand. Hopefully this means we'll be getting a review NEX-7 sometime soon — we'll let you know.