Thai floods cause hard disk shortage

Thailand's floods will cause a 30 percent drop in hard disk drive shipments in the fourth quarter of 2012, affecting nearly all major PC manufacturers, analyst firm iSuppli said.

The shortfall will affect personal computers by Dell, Apple, Asustek, HP and Lenovo.

Global HDD shipments are expected to fall from 175 million in the third quarter to 125 million units due to the floods. Thailand accounts for about 40 to 50 per cent of all HDD production worldwide.

The worst hit HDD manufacturers are Western Digital and Toshiba, which account for 25 percent of global production. 

"The loss in shipments throughout the industry will result in a dearth of both desktop and mobile hard disk drives for computers—a period of lack that will last throughout the final quarter of the year and extend well until the next year," iSuppli said in a statement. 

Some smaller PC manufacturers in the US expect computer prices there to rise by $US75, according to PC World.

Meanwhile prices for Seagate, Western Digital and Hitatchi 1TB drives have already more than doubled since October, according to a CNet analysis yesterday. 

While Seagate Technology's facility escaped damages, iSuppli notes that it was still expecting shortages in the next quarter because of affected upstream suppliers. 

The hit to HDD supplies comes as PC manufacturers look to ramp up new Solid State Disk UltraBook devices, which analyst firm Canalys believes could be accelerated as a result of the floods.