El Segundo, Calif. – The increased production of PCs is
leading to stronger demand for hard disk and optical drives in 2010, according
to iSuppli.
Year-over-year revenue for HDDs used in computer applications
will grow 18.4 percent to $27.7 billion this year, up from the $23.4 million
generated in 2009. Optical-drive revenue will climb 7.6 percent to $14.8
billion from the $13.7 posted the previous year.
Fang Zhang, iSuppli’s storage system analyst, said increased
notebook computer shipments tied to strong growth in the enterprise server
market is spurring demand for hard drives.
The optical-drive market, while continuing to grow, will do so at
a slower rate and it will not match the quarterly high-water mark of $4 billion
in sales made during the fourth quarter of 2009 until 2011. At this time, increased demand for gaming,
movies and high-quality sound systems should spur optical-drive sales once
again passed $4 billion per quarter.
