Japanese manufacturer of electric motors for hard drives Nidec published an interesting , according to which the decline in the popularity of hard drives in the PC and laptop segment will only intensify in the coming years. This year, in particular, demand may decrease by 48%.
Manufacturers of hard drives have felt this trend for a long time, and therefore try to hide the dynamics, which are not very pleasant for investors, in their quarterly reports. Seagate, in particular, not only does not indicate the number of hard drives produced during the reporting period, but also combines revenue from the sale of hard drives for desktop systems and laptops. Nowadays, the business of hard drive manufacturers increasingly depends on high-capacity drives used in server systems and data centers. Quarterly reporting has long highlighted the gross capacity of released hard drives.
According to WDC forecasts, solid-state drives began to dominate over hard drives in the laptop segment last year, and by 2023 their share will increase to 90%. Anticipating this development of events, Western Digital several years ago absorbed SanDisk, a major manufacturer of solid-state memory, and now the share of revenue from the sale of related products in WDCβs income structure is constantly growing. Unless, of course, this is prevented by a drop in memory prices, which happens periodically.
Nidec products power the spindles of approximately 85% of the world's hard drives, so the Japanese motor maker has insight into what's going on in the industry. Last year, Nidec managed to produce 124 million electric motors for hard drives used in personal computers, but this year the number may be reduced to 65 million products. In the 2020 calendar year, the number of electric motors produced may be reduced to 46 million units.
This trend is facilitated not only by the refusal to use hard drives in laptops, where they are gradually being replaced by solid-state drives, but also by the decrease in computer market turnover itself. The expansion of smartphones and other devices constantly connected to network resources has contributed to the transfer of a significant part of information to the cloud, and traditional hard drives still remain the most cost-effective storage devices per unit of information.
In the computer segment, demand is growing only for gaming and productivity systems, but solid-state drives have managed to gain a stable share in them as well. Hard drives are still needed by enthusiasts in personal computers, but such systems make up only a few percent of the total market, and therefore do not make a difference on a global scale.
In the second quarter of this year, according to Nidec forecasts, computer sales will increase from 73 million to 81 million units, but then they will gradually decline. Accordingly, fewer electric motors for hard drives will be required. Nidec intends to strengthen its position in the segment of electric motors for automotive applications - in addition to traction motors, this requires a huge number of small electric motors for servo drives. The robotics segment is growing, where precision electric motors are always in demand.
Source: 3dnews.ru