Seagate: HDD Production Won't Return to Normal For 1 Year

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[citation][nom]extremepcs[/nom]"The shortage is not entirely bad news for the disk-drive business, especially for those companies whose facilities were not damaged, such as Seagate, which has a factory high and dry on a plateau in northeastern Thailand. Mr. Monroe said price increases will help lift industry profit margin to about 30 percent from about 20 percent before the floods."[/citation]

Ah got there before me 😛
 
[citation][nom]runswindows95[/nom]Man, times like this makes me wish I had money so I could have stock up on a few hard drives before this happened. $100 for a 320GB is insane.[/citation]
$100 for a 320gb is insane? You must not be very old... I remember when a 6.4gb harddrive was well over $100....

[citation][nom]cod50[/nom]"The shortage is not entirely bad news for the disk-drive business, especially for those companies whose facilities were not damaged, such as Seagate, which has a factory high and dry on a plateau in northeastern Thailand. Mr. Monroe said price increases will help lift industry profit margin to about 30 percent from about 20 percent before the floods." [http://www.nytimes.com/2011/11/07/business/global/07iht-floods07.html?_r=1&pagewanted=all]just saw that in a link posted above. Interesting; maybe a part they buy from a 3rd party is still unavailable.[/citation]
Or, maybe Seagate is just proving to the world that their business revolves strictly around greed and nothing else. SSD prices are dropping nearly as fast as HDD prices are going up now....maybe we'll start seeing larger SSDs become reasonably priced as a result of the price gouging...
 



What BS... who cares what were the prices 10+ years back! Do you suggest they also up the prices on all current hardware because ten years ago it was a supercomputer equivalent? In current time and circumstances, $100 for 320GB IS insane.



Or maybe they're just profiteering, 'cause now seems like a good time for it. The local shops in my area are profiteering even more, selling old stocks @ new prices... bastards 😀



Fixed; and every business does.
 
What the statement made by Seagate realy says: "We will ride this out as long as we can to improve our profit margin. By that we mean that a year is about all we can milk this cash cow before we get hit with price fixing again."
 
[citation][nom]hpglow[/nom]What the statement made by Seagate realy says: "We will ride this out as long as we can to improve our profit margin. By that we mean that a year is about all we can milk this cash cow before we get hit with price fixing again."[/citation]

AMEN! haha that made me laugh; despite the fact that it is true.
 
I understand that the market will bear higher prices due to a shortage..BUT this reeks of price gouging and unbridled greed, not about making a good profit.
 
[citation][nom]hpglow[/nom]What the statement made by Seagate realy says: "We will ride this out as long as we can to improve our profit margin. By that we mean that a year is about all we can milk this cash cow before we get hit with price fixing again."[/citation]

You guys are stupid. The hard drive makers aren't the ones making huge profits from this flood. It's the retailers. Seagate said their profit margin would go up by 10%, but we're seeing drives priced at up to 200% from retailers.. that profit is absolutely NOT going back to the drive makers. Get angry at Newegg and the like for increasing prices on old stock over night.
 
[citation][nom]intel4eva[/nom]Unfortunately the flood is real.http://www.nytimes.com/2011/11/07/ [...] wanted=all[/citation]

Dude its sooo shopped!!! And I swear those are Tai Yong medical workers lololol
 
Simple economics, when demand is a lot higher than supply, prices go up to redress that balance. If they keep selling them at a low price, they go out of business because a lot of their expenses are fixed, and they'll be selling a lot fewer drives, thus making a lot less profit.

Winchester Drives not only have competition within the industry, but also have to compete with SSDs. The market will take care of excesses, one way or another.
 
[citation][nom]amk-aka-Phantom[/nom]Perhaps. But the damage that the smaller businesses with needs for large storage will take is too much. Some of them can barely include a 1TB (OLD price) in their budget, forget SSDs and new prices... Seagate and others WILL lower their prices or the demand will fall beyond what they can earn by increasing the price.[/citation]

This is exactly the problem, I work in a small business in the IT dept where we build our own servers for IP CCTV etc which requires a hell of a lot of storage... Business is already tough, and we can't compete with these large organisations who can afford to buy up these hard drives. This is actually pushing the average cost of our servers up by 1000 pounds, and for something that is inherintly a grudge purchase it could mean people are holding off on these jobs.

The problem here is most people are thinking "Great, I'm going to have to wait to buy my hard drive, or fork out £100 more" etc, but it effects small businesses who rely on selling this stuff to make a living.
 
i have to write this before reading the comments or i will forget,
a quick quote
----"But there may be a positive side to the story... at least for hard drive manufacturers. Luczo indicated that the flood has seemingly made the industry a bit more appreciative of hard drive manufacturers. The floods have even given Luczo more leverage on prices, but he's willing to settle on a 20-percent hike for those who commit to one- to three-year contracts rather than raise prices 40-percent across the board.

"People are going to appreciate the complexity of this business," he said."----

if it was me, i would have been so po'ed by the hdd manufactures, that i would have went for any one who wasnt under water exclusively. i mean seriously, look at the country, this crap is going to happen again. and than... they have the balls to say "People are going to appreciate the complexity of this business" no... we arent. MOVE OUT OF THAT PLACE, AND GET TO SOMEWHERE MORE STABLE. if there is a 20-40% premium in hdd price, move to a first world country, god knows the hdds will be better there, in a more controlled environment, and people wouldn't care about a 20-40% premium.
 
[citation][nom]dimar[/nom]And the next thing you know, flash chip factory will be rocked by a hurricane![/citation]

no, they will calim that they cant keep up stock, and increase the price of ssd.

 
Ha, 20% price increase across the board is bollocks. Not for the consumer, at least.

Where I live, 2TB drives were around €72-€80 before the floods. 20% on that would mean they'd still end up costing less than €100, which is like last year's prices or so. Still palatable, even if more expensive than usual. Instead, retail prices have gone up to around €250, or over 3 times more. That is, if you actually manage to get hold of one, most retailers simply say "I don't know if I can get you one, ever at that price point".

Which means someone in the price chain is either lying through their teeth about just how much they have increased prices at the source or gouging in the intermediate steps. My guess is probably both, and resellers have probably gone and increased margins for consumers to Apple-like ones (meaning 60%+) just to be on the safe side.

Really, if the loss of 40% of the world HDD supply means 3x the retail prices, I'd hate to see prices for a 60% loss... I mean, they'll be short of 50Million HDDs by the year's end (which means the unnafected factories were already operating at full capacity, which I find hard to believe and a general bad business practice anyways) out of 180 Million. Sure, significant, but not catastrophic...

Now, one thing that always bugs me about these flood reports is Samsung and other manufacturers are nowhere to be seen in the affected manufacturer's list, and yet their prices have gone up just as much as all the other brands, if not more. I mean, if for Samsung (and I know Samsung is selling the HDD division, the point is their manufacturing plants seem to be elsewhere) it' business as usual on the HDD front for them, and only a slight price increase could completely change the market share (€250 for a WD 2TB drive or €120 for a Samsung one? Most consumers would find the answer to be easy...)

I just hope this goes away soon. I have a NAS in dire need of HDD space, but I'm not going to even consider buying one (or two, in this case) before prices calm down a bit... It's madness right now...

OK, /RANT
 
[citation][nom]runswindows95[/nom]Man, times like this makes me wish I had money so I could have stock up on a few hard drives before this happened. $100 for a 320GB is insane.[/citation]
It's like 2007 prices all over again.
 
[citation][nom]runswindows95[/nom]Man, times like this makes me wish I had money so I could have stock up on a few hard drives before this happened. $100 for a 320GB is insane.[/citation]
I'm debating selling my 500gb F3 and my 320gb WD drives on ebay for about $200 towards an SSD =)

I can sell them each used for twice the original price in under a year. Wish I had more drives to resell!
 
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