Hard drive shipments nearly halved in 2022

Why it issues: A current report from Trendfocus exhibits SSD gross sales proceed to rise dramatically, whereas HDD producers are noticing record-breaking declines in general shipments. Analysts estimate that shipments declined by greater than 40 p.c in comparison with 2021.

For many years, HDDs had been shoppers’ go-to selection for PC storage. Exhausting disk drives supplied a wonderful steadiness of excessive capability at decrease prices. Nonetheless, HDDs have begun to be outclassed by solid-state drives (SSDs), which usually present higher efficiency at the next value. Regardless of this (or maybe due to it), HDDs nonetheless held the next market share for years as a result of considerably higher price per GB and bigger storage capacities.

Nonetheless, this changed for the primary time in 2020, when SSDs outsold HDDs. A number one issue on this shift in gross sales doubtless rests on SSD costs lastly changing into manageable for even essentially the most budget-minded PC customers. Surprisingly, Statista famous in September that HDD cargo ranges went practically unchanged in 2021, falling by solely 0.5%. Sadly for producers, this stagnation did not final lengthy.

The newest report from Trendfocus analysts covers the quarterly and yearly changes for the three largest HDD producers –Seagate, Toshiba, and Western Digital Corp. (WDC). The outcomes offered within the evaluation do not bode properly for these producers.

The three main producers seen a steep drop in 2022. Seagate took essentially the most brutal hit, with estimates ranging between -41.7 and -43.7 p.c in HDD gross sales. Western Digital dipped practically as a lot, falling 40.7 to 43 p.c. Toshiba faired one of the best however nonetheless noticed losses of 37.7 and 39.3 p.c.

Oddly sufficient, regardless of the sharp decline in shipments, 2.5″ HDDs nonetheless “rebounded” by practically 15 p.c quarter-for-quarter. Nonetheless, these had been the one drives that noticed a rise in gross sales. Client drives declined by mid-single-digit percentages, which, whereas not promising, continues to be a far cry from what occurred within the enterprise trade.

Gross sales of enterprise-focused drives tanked as a consequence of “falling cloud demand” inside companies. Trendfocus factors out that Seagate, Toshiba, and WDC bought an estimated 11.5–12.5 million enterprise drives mixed, which feels like a big quantity. Nonetheless, it nonetheless resulted in a 25-percent decline in quarter-to-quarter shipments.

General, there seems to be no finish to the decline in HDD gross sales. Strong-state drive costs are rapidly falling to close HDD ranges, with 500 GB SSDs even reaching value parity with 500 GB HDDs. There’s cause to consider this parity will spread to SSDs above 500 GB by the top of 2023, which might spell catastrophe for HDD producers.