More to the point, Korea is down 4.45%. Obviously, this is good and bad. Undoubtedly, Hyundai (Maxtor) and Samsung are not going to be able to easily access more capital. M. Brown stated that it boils down to a hard decision on their part, whether to use their (now-limited) resources to pursue a highly competitive dd business, or put their money into something else. My guess would be that they'll try to salvage their DRAM business before dumping more billions into disk drives but that's just my uninformed opinion. The bad part is if Korea really goes down the tubes, and triggers a global recession. For example, if the Dec. 18 election results in electing a president who will renege on the IMF deal. That's a real longshot, no one has ever defaulted on an IMF loan.
The Nikkei index is also down, 1.83%. The Japanese electronics corporations are also facing some of the same issues as the Koreans, albeit not as severely. (I hope "not as severely". If Japan tanks, I think we're looking at a global depression.) I read that the Japanese are seeing reduced profits, in large part due to weakness in DRAM pricing. However, I don't know if Fujitsu is severely affected due to more diversification in chips. Sankar stated that they are in trouble also, so perhaps he can expand upon that comment.
Taiwan (and I think Singapore) do not seem to be in as bad shape. Does anyone know if Taiwan has any aggressive dd companies?
Gus is a lot better at this, perhaps he will offer some commentary on the subject.
P.S. I think that demand for drives will increase nicely this spring when Microsoft finally comes out with Win 98. Plus everyone who bought cheap $1000 computers will have to upgrade their disk drives. |
