Thai floods catapult Seagate into hard drive market lead
Monsoonal flooding in Thailand last year helped Seagate Technology recapture the worldwide lead in hard disk drive shipments in the last quarter of 2011, according to a new report from IHS iSuppli.
Seagate passed former market leader Western Digital Corp., which suffered heavy losses in the devastating Thailand floods last year. Seagate claimed 38% of HDD market share, compared with Western Digital's 23%, according to the iSuppli report released today.
Toshiba claimed 16% of HDD units shipping worldwide in the fourth quarter, followed by Hitachi GST with 14% and Samsung with 9%. "Seagate owes its return to market leadership to a fortuitous accident in geography: Its HDD manufacturing plant in Thailand is located on high ground," IHS iSuppli analyst Fang Zhang said in a statement. "As a result, the company was less impacted by the October floods -- the most destructive in the last 50 years for the Southeast Asian country."
