CES: Seagate CEO Luczo Sees 15%-Plus HHD Growth In 2010
By Eric Savitz
* Saturday, January 9, 2010 ET
Seagate (STX) CEO Steve Luczo thinks the hard-drive industry could see unit demand grow 15% or more in 2010.
In an interview Friday with Tech Trader Daily at the Consumer Electronics Show in Las Vegas, Luczo said that while many analysts are projecting growth of 10%-15%, he thinks the actual increase could be bigger. “I think we’ll be chasing demand all year,” he said, speaking in a small meeting room in the Four Seasons Hotel, where the company had set up camp for the week.
[EDIT: The paragraph below expresses my POV pretty well.]
Luczo says he’s been trying to explain to people for months how there was a recovery in demand in 2009 without a recovery in the U.S. He notes that “a lot of other places in the world have been switched on.” What some people are missing, he says, is that in the back half of 2010, “the U.S. switches on.” And he says “2011 will be a monster, with the world clicking on all cylinders.”
Dave Mosely, executive VP for sales, marketing and product line management at Seagate, says he expects tightness “all the way up the supply chain” in 2010, with shortage of glass substrate, heads and media. On the one hand, he notes that long lead times for capital investments make it difficult for component suppliers to ramp up production quickly. And on the other hand, he says that laptop price points have fallen in geographies where per capita income has come, making hardware more affordable and “creating lots of demand.”
On Friday, STX shares fell 15 cents, or 0.8%, to $17.89.
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