Why it issues: A latest report from Trendfocus reveals that SSD gross sales proceed to rise sharply, whereas HDD makers are noticing a record-breaking decline in general shipments. Analysts estimate that shipments are down greater than 40% in comparison with 2021.
For a long time, HDDs have been the primary selection for customers for PC storage. Hard drives supply the right stability of excessive capability at a low value. However, HDDs have begun to be outpaced by solid-state drives (SSDs), which typically supply higher efficiency at a better value. Despite this (or due to it), HDDs have held a excessive market share for a few years resulting from considerably decrease value per gigabyte and larger storage capability.
However, this modified for the primary time in 2020, when SSDs outsold HDDs. A dominant issue on this gross sales shift could also be that SSD costs are lastly changing into manageable, even for probably the most budget-conscious PC customers. Surprisingly, Statista famous in September that HDD shipments had been little modified in 2021, falling simply 0.5%. Unfortunately for producers, the stagnation did not final lengthy.
The newest report from Trendfocus analysts covers quarterly and yearly modifications for the three largest onerous drive makers – Seagate, Toshiba and Western Digital Corporation (WDC). The outcomes offered within the evaluation don’t bode effectively for these producers.
The three main producers word a pointy decline in gross sales in 2022. Seagate will probably be hit the toughest, forecasting onerous drive gross sales between -41.7% and -43.7%. Western Digital fell by nearly the identical quantity, between 40.7% and 43%. Toshiba was the most effective performer, however nonetheless misplaced 37.7% and 39.3%.
Oddly sufficient, regardless of the sharp decline in shipments, 2.5″ HDDs nonetheless “rebounded” by nearly 15% quarter-on-quarter. However, these had been the one drives with gross sales development. Consumer drives had been down a mid-single-digit proportion, though not Not optimistic, however nonetheless a far cry from what’s occurring within the enterprise trade.
Sales of enterprise-focused drives fell sharply resulting from “declining cloud demand” inside the enterprise. Trendfocus notes that Seagate, Toshiba, and WDC have offered a mixed 11.5 million to 12.5 million enterprise onerous drives, which appears like rather a lot. However, it nonetheless resulted in a 25% drop in quarterly shipments.
Overall, there appears to be no finish to the decline in HDD gross sales. The costs of solid-state drives are dropping quickly to strategy the extent of HDD, and the value of 500 GB SSD is even equal to that of 500 GB HDD. There is purpose to imagine that this parity will lengthen to SSDs above 500 GB by the tip of 2023, which may spell catastrophe for HDD producers.
