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To: Jonathan N who wrote (1422)	12/7/1999 5:26:00 AM
From: Tom Simpson	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 1487

<<Also, NHK really has 18%? This leaves very little left over for Magnecomp and KRP (about 12% between them) if HTI is still at 70%. Unless we are comparing apples and oranges (units and revenue).>> Good point....18% of WHAT. FWIW here is what I?ve dug up for 1998 calender year (in millions) HTCH MAGNEC KRP NHK Total Units 526 127 33 124 810 % 65 16 4 15 100 $US 474 77 21 87 659 % 71 12 3 14 100 ASP (USD) .90 .60 .63 .70 Data for the first two is sourced in their financials; KRP cobbled out of their releases; NHK was constructed from two separate third party sources for units (which differed from each other by 6%) and their sales comes from a WAG at their ASP. As a cross check, total disk head shipments in 1998 are reported elsewhere at 837 million and hard disk units shipped at 152 million which would be 912 million heads at an average of 6 heads per hard disk. Reading KRP and MAGNEC bad news suggests that Seagate took an abortive run at adding suspensions to their vertical totem pole so its perhaps not unexpected that total suspensions from these 4 should be less than total heads. The fall and recent rise of Seagate as a percent of HTCH production is consistent with the KRP/MAGNEC story. It bothers me that heads, suspensions and disks should coincide so well from disparate sources --- at the least they should be royally screwed up by counting/not counting internal head production at Seagate and IBM. My conclusion is that a recent earthquake in market shares is unlikely and KRP has a tough row to hoe ever getting theirs back. If anyone has better numbers for NHK in particular I would appreciate sharing. Best..Tom