Hard drive shipments almost halved in 2022

January 19, 2023  21:47

In 2022, global shipments of hard disk drives (HDDs) have almost halved compared to 2021. This is stated in the new report by the Trendfocus analytical agency.

According to tomshardware.com, respective industry leaders Seagate and Western Digital were, as expected, the hardest hit. In the case of the first, in 2022, compared to the previous year, shipments of HDDs decreased by 43.7%, and in the case of the second—by 43.0%. Among the affected manufacturers, Toshiba is in third place; in 2022, the company's HDD shipments fell by 39.3%.

As per the report, the total amount of global shipments of hard drives decreased by 42.5% last year and made about 35-36 million units.

What led to such a decline?

According to analysts, the biggest role in this issue was the decline in demand for corporate cloud storage, as it was for them that a large number of HDDs were purchased. As a result, in the fourth quarter of last year, 10-11 million fewer hard drives were purchased in this sector than in the same period of 2021.

The decline in shipments of consumer 3.5-inch hard drives was only 1%, which did not really affect the overall picture. At the same time, the shipments of 2.5-inch HDDs increased by 15% at the end of last year.

The fact that solid-state drives (SSDs) are becoming more popular also plays a significant role in the reducing demand for HDDs. According to analysts, in 2022, a total of 92% of sold laptops were equipped with SSDs, and this indicator, according to experts, will increase to 96% this year.

Many experts believe that the replacement of hard drives with SSDs is only a matter of time, and therefore the supply of HDDs will continue to decrease, whereas the demand for SSDs will increase, at least until new and more functional and convenient solutions are found.

 


 
 
 
 
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