I'm surprised how people think that INTC, DELL, HPQ will die because nobody will buy PCs anymore, but then WDC and STX will somehow survive. :)
WDC and STX face the same amount of risk as INTC, probably more. Mobile devices do not have HDDs at all, while they still have CPUs. And if we talk about HDDs being needed for cloud storage, so are INTC CPUs. :)
WDC and STX are quite cheap. But don't fool yourself that there is no risk. The HDD price wars are a bit less intense than years ago, but the prices are still crashing and solid state will keep the pressure on margins. Solid state is close to the magic price/Gb level when people will start putting it as full replacement primary drive into laptops. ~200Gb solid states are becoming cheap enough to have a primary SSD that will hold OS, apps, games, music, videos with some planning. Yes, you can still get 1-2Tb HDD for the same price, but now SSD is viable as primary main drive. If HDD loses a significant segment of laptop market, look out.
Price wise, yes, WDC & STX are as cheap as DELL and much cheaper than INTC. I should probably buy a small position. I'm just not sure it's a great place to be. |
