Seagate CEO, Steve Luczo, has suggested this year’s floods in Thailand will limit worldwide hard disk supply to 120 million units in the first quarter of 2012, well below the anticipated demand of 180 million units. Production capacity will recover over the course of the next year but there is likely to be 100 million units under-produced throughout 2012. Industry observers reckon it will take the whole of 2013 for manufacturing to catch up with demand.
This means only one thing for and consumers, higher prices for PCs and servers. The fall in the pound compared to the US dollar in 2008, pushed up component and therefore PC prices despite anaemic UK demand. There will be few bargains around for a while.
