WD's Capacities to Total 58 Million HDDs per Quarter This Summer.

Pricing of hard disk drives may start to go down already this summer as Western Digital, formerly the largest maker of HDDs, expects to restore all of its production capacities that suffered severe flood in Thailand by July, which will mean the end of hard disk shortages.

When asked about actual production capacities of the company going forward, chief executive officer of Western Digital elaborated that the firm expects to have no constraints in terms of manufacturing capacities during the quarter that ends on September 30, 2012 and begins on July 1, 2012. Generally, this means that WD's capacities will be restored completely by June 30, or earlier.

 

"We expect to be at 100% of capacity in the September quarter. So yes, exiting the June quarter, we'll have to be getting to that run rate," said John Coyne, chief executive officer of Western Digital, during the most recent conference call with financial analysts.

Previously, WD indicated that it would restore production capacities by September, but did not elaborate when exactly. Apparently, the company will be at 100% of pre-flood manufacturing capacity already by the middle of the year. Given the fact that Seagate shipped 58 million of hard drives in Q3 2011, the company expects to be at that level in Q3 2012.

With better availability of hard disk drives starting mid-2012, prices of hard disk drives will start to return to pre-flood points around that time as well.