Western Digital Working to Bring Thailand Factories Back Online
Western Digital recently announced that they are ahead of schedule on restoring production to their factories in Thailand damaged by the recent flooding there. Western Digital’s Thailand factories are responsible for about 60% of the company’s products and the damage done, as well as the damage done to the factories of the other hard drive component manufacturers in the region, have had a major impact on hard drive supplies around the world. Fortunately for Western Digital, the hard drive shortages have not had a negative effect on Western Digital’s bottom line as they also announced that they expect quarterly revenue of about $1.8 billion versus the $1.05-$1.25 billion they had projected. Western Digital’s rapid progress is good news, particularly for the folks in Thailand affected by the floods, so hopefully things continue to progress well. Any bets that hard drive prices don’t fall as fast they have risen when the rest of the factories are restored?
“Much work remains to be done, but we couldn’t be more pleased with the effort and results thus far, including tremendous support from our supply partners and customers,” said Western Digital CEO John Coyne.
They likely haven’t had a hit
They likely haven’t had a hit to the bottom line because the shortage has allowed them to increase the price threefold. Seeing has how they project to have double the profits they were expecting it would at appear that they still would have made money without increaseing prices.
Well it’s the free market
Well it’s the free market principle right? The prices are set by what the market will bear. I agree that even once pre-flood capacity has been restored there’ll be a pretty good lag in pre-flood price restoration. But then again that’s the way things always seem to go.
No matter what all of my rigs have relatively new HDDs so there’s non urgency to replace any aging units. On the other hand the new build that I was planing for early next year will be placed on hold because of the HDD cost matter and until the HDD prices come down a little the project will remain on hold.