Seagate: HDD prices cannot go down until end of 2012

Andre Yoskowitz
17 Nov 2011 16:46

Seagate CEO Stephen Luczo has some bad news for anyone in need of a new hard drive - prices will stay inflated until at least the end of next year.
Due to the flooding in Thailand, which has left 13 million people homeless and a significant amount of factories with over 3 feet of water, hard drive prices have soared 20 percent in the last month.
Says the CEO:

This is going to take a lot longer than people are assuming, until the end of 2012 at least. And by then, demand will have gone up.

Currently, the floods have affected the infrastructure that is producing around 40 percent of the world's hard drives.
With supply drying up and demand growing, some customers have offered Seagate $250 million in upfront cash to lock up some capacity. For now, the CEO says he could raise prices another 20 percent but prefers to sign up customers for 1-3 year contracts at the current rates, instead.