iSuppli crunches market share data after HDD maker mergers


by Cyril Kowaliski — 5:33 PM on May 4, 2011

Surely you noticed that, last month, Seagate and Samsung agreed to combine their mechanical storage businesses as part of a $1.37-billion deal. At the time, we said the merger would leave the hard-drive market with only three major players. Well, the folks at iSuppli have crunched the numbers, and their findings point more toward a virtual duopoly—though they don't actually say so.

Taking all of the latest mergers into account (including Western Digital's acquisition of Hitachi GST), iSuppli worked out the following market share numbers based on last year's shipments:

Vendor Shipments Market share
Western Digital 319.5 million 48.9%
Seagate 261.2 million 40.0%
Toshiba 71.7 million 11.0%

Western Digital looks destined to remain top dog, at least if this year's market share figures mirror last year's in any way. Seagate won't be far behind, however.

As for Toshiba... well, call it a hunch, but the firm looks to have an uphill battle ahead. WD and Seagate may enjoy greater-than-ever economies of scale, and I doubt competition between them will cool off anytime soon, which could leave the smaller Japanese player behind in the dust.

   
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