SAN FRANCISCO--Global sales of hard disk drives (HDDs) are expected to decline by about 12 percent this year and decline further in 2014, according to market research firm IHS iSuppli.
As consumers turn their attention away from traditional PCs to tablets, smartphones and new-age type of PCs with solid state drives (SSDs), HDD revenue is projected to slip to about $32.7 billion in 2013, down from $37.1 billion last year. Sales of HDDs are projected to further slip to $32 billion in 2014, IHS said.
"The HDD industry will face myriad challenges in 2013," said Fang Zhang, analyst for storage systems at IHS, in a statement. "Shipments for desktop PCs will slip this year, while notebook sales are under pressure as consumers continue to favor smartphones and tablets. The declining price of SSDs also will allow them to take away some share from conventional HDDs."
HDD gross and operating margins are also likely to decline as a result of continued price erosion, IHS said. But Zhang said HDDs will continue to be the dominant form of storage this year, "especially as demand for ultrabooks picks up and hard drives remain essential in business computing."
IHS said it expects HDDs to continue to dominate the storage market because of their cost advantage relative to SSDs. HDD costs and pricing are significantly lower than SSDs, IHS said, with HDD average selling prices expected to decline a further 7 percent in 2013.
The rise of ultrabooks
IHS said HDDs would continue to be part of the storage solution even in ultrabooks--the Intel-backed ultrathin, power thrifty laptops that feature SSDs. The solution, which cobbles hard disk drives together with a so-called cache SSD module, boasts of a superior price-value proposition compared to SSD-only counterparts, IHS said.
A major growth area for HDDs in coming years will be in the business sector, spanning the enterprise space, cloud storage, big data and big-data analytics, according to IHS. Bearing the lowest cost of any storage medium now on the market, HDDs will remain the final destination for the majority of digital content that need to be filed away, IHS said. IHS noted that later this year Western Digital Corp. is expected to launch a 5-terabyte Helium HDD,catering mostly to data centers for enterprise servers and storage applications.
Western Digital is expected to continue battling archrival Seagate Technology for market leadership in both revenue and shipments, especially in the enterprise business segment, IHS said. While Seagate had a 50 percent share of the enterprise market last year, the introduction by Western Digital of its new helium technology could catapult the manufacturer to the top at the end of 2013, according to the research firm.
IHS said it expects similar losses in both revenue and shipments in the market for PC optical disk drives--including discs like CDs and DVDs. IHS said optical drives could eventually be abandoned altogether by PC makers.
IHS said HDDs would continue to be part of the storage solution even in ultrabooks--the Intel-backed ultrathin, power thrifty laptops that feature SSDs. The solution, which cobbles hard disk drives together with a so-called cache SSD module, boasts of a superior price-value proposition compared to SSD-only counterparts, IHS said.
A major growth area for HDDs in coming years will be in the business sector, spanning the enterprise space, cloud storage, big data and big-data analytics, according to IHS. Bearing the lowest cost of any storage medium now on the market, HDDs will remain the final destination for the majority of digital content that need to be filed away, IHS said. IHS noted that later this year Western Digital Corp. is expected to launch a 5-terabyte Helium HDD,catering mostly to data centers for enterprise servers and storage applications.
Western Digital is expected to continue battling archrival Seagate Technology for market leadership in both revenue and shipments, especially in the enterprise business segment, IHS said. While Seagate had a 50 percent share of the enterprise market last year, the introduction by Western Digital of its new helium technology could catapult the manufacturer to the top at the end of 2013, according to the research firm.
IHS said it expects similar losses in both revenue and shipments in the market for PC optical disk drives--including discs like CDs and DVDs. IHS said optical drives could eventually be abandoned altogether by PC makers.
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