Analyst group iSuppli predicts global shipments of hard disk drives (HDDs) designed for the PC and enterprise industries will flatline or may decline in the fourth quarter of 2008.
The estimated 149.4 million units expected to ship this quarter is a 10 percent sequential drop than the previous quarter. In September, analysts predicted HDD shipments would increase 4.9 percent in the fourth quarter, while increasing 16.6 percent overall in 2008.
The possible HDD decline is also accelerated by the global slowdown of PC shipments, along with other electronics products. The struggling economy surely will not help HDD manufacturers looking to ship their products in OEM systems made by Dell, Hewlett-Packard, and others.
On the brighter side, iSuppli, along with Western Digital and Seagate, predict overall HDD shipments of 157.5 million units during the fourth quarter. The predicted number is virtually the same as the 158.3 million units that manufacturers shipped during the third quarter.
Even though iSuppli believes its more optimistic outlook is more accurate, the future for HDDs remains unknown. HDD sales numbers in 2009 are expected to be between 4.3 percent to 6.8 percent higher than 2008, although the struggling economy and dropping cost of SSDs will likely influence HDD numbers.
HDDs successor, solid state drives (SSDs), have shown great progress, but the technology isn't quite ready for mainstream adoption yet. The technology is more reliable and runs at cooler tempratures, but remains much more expensive compared to HDDs.
iSuppli also believes SSDs will see dramatic growth, with 3.2 million units shipped in 2008, and 18.9 million units expected in 2009.
