HERE AND THERE IN THE INDUSTRY: NEWS AND DEVELOPMENTS OF SPECIAL INTEREST

摘要

The 1998 edition of Disk/Trend's "Rigid Disk Drive Report" has been published, and it is full of many interesting observations and comments, as well as providing complete data and analysis of results in the disk-drive industry in 1997 and projections for 1998 through 2001. For example, the average price per megabyte for all disk drives shipped in 1997 was less than $0.10, and in 1998 is expected to fall to less than $0.05. By comparison, the average in 1987 was over $11.00! Non-U.S. drive manufacturers of rigid-disk drives captured 22.7 percent of the worldwide market on a revenue basis in 1997, and are expected to increase their share to 30 percent by 2001. In 1997, total drive revenues reached $31.74 billion, and unit deliveries were 130.5 million drives, up 25.6 percent from 1996. By 2001, Disk/Trend estimates revenues will have increased to $38.7 billion, a change of only 22 percent, but unit deliveries will have climbed 78 percent, to 232.5 million drives. In other words, the average price per megabyte is going to continue to drop rapidly over the next several years!