167 Million HDDs Shipped In Q2, WD Leads

Hard drive manufacturers shipped 167.1 million hard drives in the second quarter of this year, up 4% from 160.5 million units in Q1, according to market research firm IHS.

WD leads the market with 32% share, followed by Seagate with 31%. Including the recently announced acquisition of Hitachi Global Storage (HGST), WD was at 48% share, while the addition of Samsung takes Seagate to 42%. The only other major HDD manufacturer left is Toshiba/Fujitsu with 11% share.

IHS said that WDC had record shipments of 53.8 million drives during the quarter and revenue of $2.4 billion. Seagate shipped only 52.3 million units, but raked in $2.9 billion thanks to its position in the enterprise market.

"Despite some disruptions resulting from the Japan quake disaster in March and the continuing decline of netbook sales because of tablet devices, HDD shipments rose during the second quarter, with each hard drive maker meeting its revenue forecast," said Fang Zhang, analyst for storage systems at IHS. "Growth was achieved partially from a pull-in of orders by PC manufacturers fearing a potential shortage of components from the quake’s impact, and also by suppliers utilizing less expensive sea freight to ship goods instead of costly air freight."