Weak demand caused HDD shipments to drop 15.4% quarter-on-quarter
With weak market demand, HDD shipments will decline significantly in the second quarter of 2022. According to the latest report released by Storage Newsletter recently, HDD shipments in the second quarter of 2022 totaled approximately 44.65 million units, down 15.4% from the previous quarter. However, with the transition of HDD to higher capacity, the impact on the total shipment capacity was small, at 319EB, a slight decrease of 2%.
Seagate occupies the largest market share, about 44.5%, with a total shipment of 19.88 million pieces, and the decline is also the smallest, controlled within 30%. The average capacity per HDD increased by 1.2TB to 7.8TB. The performance of the enterprise side remains solid, with even 8% shipment growth for 3.5-inch HDDs in the NAS and surveillance sectors.
Western Digital’s market share is about 36.9%, with a total shipment of 16.48 million units, a double-digit decline in all market segments, and the average capacity of each HDD is similar to Seagate’s, both at 7.8TB. Toshiba’s market share is about 18.6%, with a total shipment of 8.29 million units, and the average capacity of each HDD has increased slightly to 4.4TB.
Undoubtedly, due to the overall weak PC market in 2022 and the continued increase in SSD demand, HDD demand will face a sharp decline. However, the total shipment capacity did not drop too much, indicating that high-capacity HDDs are becoming the mainstream of the market, while smaller capacity products such as 1TB or 2TB are being replaced by SSDs.
The recent decline in the price of NAND flash chips has led to a decline in the price of SSDs. Both OEMs and individual consumers are more inclined to choose SSDs. It was previously reported that Microsoft plans to include SSDs in the basic requirements of Windows 11 PCs, forcing OEMs to adopt SSDs as boot disks, in 2023. If the rumors are true, the space left for client HDDs will be even tighter.
