Average Selling Prices of Hard Disk Drives after Floods
Over at Xbitlabs they compiled this great little plotted chart showing how incredibly slow average selling prices of HDDS are dropping back to the “pre-flood” levels, but today’s ASP are on the pre-economic crisis levels. average selling pBased on the recent financial results of Seagate Technologies and Western Digital Corp., average selling price of a hard disk drive in Q3 – Q4 of calendar 2012 (Q1 – Q2 of fiscal 2013) decreased to $62 - $63 per unit, which is considerably higher than $45 - $55 ahead of the flood in Thailand in 2010.
Prices are gradually returning to their historical levels due to general dynamics of the personal computers market. It remains to be seen whether the ASPs will get back to the “pre-flood” levels, but today’s ASP are on the pre-economic crisis levels.
But is in line with ASPs between $53 and $62 in Q3 2008 (Q2 FY2009), ahead of a major drop of demand for PCs in the following quarters due to global economic. Obviously, just average selling prices of hard disk drives cannot fully describe the market situation by themselves since they are affected by multiple factors, such a product mix, seasonality, product performance and so on. Nonetheless, it is evident that the HDD ASPs peaked in Q4 2011 (Q2 FY2012) and were on the decline trend since then.
At present WD is trying to sustain average selling prices on certain levels and avoid further drops since it will negatively affect its margins and competitive abilities in the long-term. The company’s new chief executive said that it limits production levels in order not to produce excessive inventory and then sell it at low prices. At the same time, Western Digital is looking forward to make its business and products more economically efficient, which should help the company to survive even with soft market demand and low ASPs. “We obviously have more capacity than what we are producing because we are throttling it to what we see as demand. But we are taking actions to reset our capacity potential to a more appropriate level given what we view the secular changes in terms of the overall demand profile for the industry. Not that we do not expect to see growth, but not at the same rates than what we have historically done. […] There are multiple opportunities that we have as an organization to continue to improve our cost structure,” said Stephen Milligan, chief executive officer of WD.
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I think he meant that crysis itself was real, but the prices are too high compared to current conditions =] just don't tell me that they don't use it as a reason to keep prices too high after everything has happend. If you know how Economy works, you should learn about greedy people ;D
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It is a couple dollars higher and a couple years later. How could you know the prices would not have settled at this price anyway?
Anyway, look at the real shipment figures. You will see a huge dip in hard disk shipments following the flood. That is naturally going to drive price higher. Since then, you not only have to fulfill current demand, but also past demand, for people who had forgone purchasing a hard disk at an elevated price.
Anyway, the difference in prices between now and then is essentially nothing. You can find 1TB HDD for 49.99, just like you could before, you just need to look.
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I'm comparing same drive prices, with same specifications same vendor. Not just any 1TB drive to different 1TB drive. I assumed you mean 50USD, so cheapest 1TB drive cost 65 USD in Lithuania, our retailers also used crisis as a reason to make prices more higher. I don't really search for cheapest prices, i also have in mind that retailer or seller has to be trusted. On ebay you can get a lot of things cheaper but with huge sacrifice on quality or luck. Already burned my fingers on buying from cheapest sellers.
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If demand for drives had dropped so would prices.
Its basic economics dude.
This.
Stop buying HDDs for awhile ffs.
On a more serious note, current prices actually reflect the current safe margin for manufacturers to maintain higher prices compared to pre-flood without losing considerable amount of sales.
Hence, stop buying HDDs for awhile.
On the other hand, SSDs are coming in fast and going in hard *snickers*, along with the availability of good TLC products like Samsung's.
At some point, SSD's price-per-GB and durability would be on par with HDD, and HDD would probably be phased out altogether.
In the mean time, if HDD manufacturers can still rake up profits while HDD is still meaningful then why not; gotta have something to get the company going while waiting for SSD to become a definite HDD replacement from every aspect.