With the two first quarters of sub-100 million sales, some people in the HDD industry
may be feeling that the “sky is falling” again. It’s easy to understand this sentiment, especially with SSDs making steady inroads in the client PC space. However, HDD demand typically rebounds during the second half of the year. PC sales are seasonally stronger due to back-to-school and holiday sales season and the the CE (game console) market comes to life.
To understand exactly where the industry stands heading into 2H 2017, we only need to look at how many game console HDDs have sold in the first two quarters. CQ1 plus CQ2 game console HDD sales total 10.5 million, and with average yearly sales of around 28 million, there is still sizeable upside for the CE (game console) market. Combined this with modestly higher client HDD sales, HDD market should top 400 million in 2017. So, what HDD industry is feeling may not be that the sky is falling, but rather a temporary (total) eclipse of the sun.
Happy Total Eclipse of the Sun Day!