Hard Drive Supply Shrinking Due To Japan’s Earthquake

Since the hard drive makers’ primary chip suppliers in Japan mostly had their production lines devastated by the earthquake, while the makers’ secondary suppliers do not have enough capacities to fully cover the supply gap, the hard drive’s price started to have a little rise in early April with some models have already seen a price increase of 10-15%. Although the hard drive industry’s upstream chip suppliers Texas Instruments and Renesas Electronics have both been aggressive restoring their capacities after the disaster, sources from hard drive makers estimate that the supply gap of the hard drive industry will still have difficulties to be fully recovered in the second quarter.