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Technology Stocks : Seagate Technology -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: duedilly who wrote (7443)	7/31/2006 11:05:05 AM
From: go_gatrz	Read Replies (2) \| Respond to of 7841

OK - I'll move over here too. Thanks for that info duedilly. But I have a little bone to pick with Neff regarding the interpretation of Hitachi. "Stock impact: negative for STX/MXO and WDC (aggressive pricing by HGST); positive for KOMG (share gain by Hitachi could help offset the decline in STX/MXO)." First, his tone with respect to impact on STX & WDC. In the 1st qtr, MXO shipped over 12Mill drives. Hitachi's 3.5" DT drive shipments increased by 600K units in 2nd qtr. Even assuming that Samsung may have picked up half that number (they are smaller), it would seem that so far, the vast majority of MXO DT market share is falling towards WDC, or staying at STX. And as for Enterprise, Hitachi only shipped 100K more drives (MXO was at 973K in 1st qtr). That's not much share loss for STX (my guess is Fujitsu may have gotten more Enterprise than Hitachi). In any event, STX seems to be keeping way more than 50% of MXO market share. THAT should be very bullish for STX. Second, as for his claim that WDC would be hurt by aggressive pricing: June was a VERY tough month on the low-end. Yet WDC managed to navigate pretty well. And so far this qtr, inventories at all three major distributors I follow are down significantly. And as I pointed out elsewhere, Hitachi the most of all. It almost looks like a production problem, or they are all in transit. I wish the analysts would ask STX to clarify their view of channel inventory. Whatever it was 6-30-06 is not what it is today (or next week). What is it now? Finally, he seems to gloss over the importance of STX and WDC picking up so much 2.5" market share. One line. This is significant. Somehow, Hitachi's report doesn't seem bearish for STX (nor WDC). And it also reaffirms my belief that Hitachi management is close to doing something about HGST. HGST has been profitable one qtr out of (I think) the last 2 years - the best 2 years in HDD history (demand-wise). Something is not right there, and they will not "fix it" by trying to buy market share - unless they buy a lot of market share (WDC?).