Makers Of Tiny Hard Drives Smile As Store Shelves Empty Of iPods

by , 12:00 PM EST, December 24th, 2003

As you might imagine, one of the hottest gifts this year is the iPod and other similar portable music players. Store shelves around the world are being bared of iPods faster than Santa can say, "Ho, ho, ho!" While this is good news for retailers, it is excellent news for the makers of the parts and pieces that go into those mini-music players.

A Reuters article says that companies like Toshiba, makers of the little hard drive that goes into Apple's iPod, are having a very good year indeed, as orders for drive products are strong and expected to increase over the next few years. As an indicator, that reflects well on Apple and the other sellers of these consumer products. Here's an excerpt from the Reuters News article, Happy holidays for makers of disk drive parts:

There's a newly popular stocking stuffer around this Christmas: gadgets equipped with tiny hard drives.

From video cameras to portable music players, consumer electronics manufacturers are increasingly incorporating high-capacity hard disks into their products to store video and music.

That's providing a windfall for the Asian companies that build drives and parts, ranging from screws to baseplates, and is offering investors a new trend to bet on.

Bullish forecasts abound. Research firm TrendFocus sees hard drive shipments to consumer electronics makers soaring to 55 million units in 2006 from an estimated 17 million this year.

Blazing a trail for the market is Japan's Toshiba, which provides small drives for Apple Computer's hugely popular iPod music player.

Toshiba controls 98 percent of the market for the 1.8 inch-diameter drives used in the iPod, which can pack up to 10,000 songs in a device the size of a deck of cards, and its small drives are also appearing in a miniature video camera that can record up to two hours of high-definition video.

Read the full articles at Reuters Web site.

The Mac Observer Spin:

iPods are, indeed, the hot item this year. A check at any local shop selling the Apple music player will reveal empty shelves where the lower capacity models had been and quickly diminishing numbers of whatever is left. Makers of competing players are also having a good year. All of this means that parts-makers should be smiling as visions of dollar signs dance in their heads.

Expect to see new uses for the tiny drives in the near future too, as prices drop and competition heats up.

It's a Happy Christmas for Disk Drive Parts Makers