"TrendFocus said Seagate was the quarter champion, pumping out 36.75 million drives, down 8 per cent annually. The research house said rival Western Digital had shipped 30.5 million, down 28 per cent on the year and an 11 per cent quarterly decline from (we calculated) about 34.3 million."
https://www.theregister.co.uk/2019/01/10/disk_drive_unit_ships_down/
After reading WD HDD earnings I just do not see how STX can be anywhere near 31 percent gross margin. Every market is down and cloud is not buying. Maybe they meet low revenue forecast of 2.7b but gm should be mid to upper 20s, like 27.
Forecasted GM is 31%. This is during the same call where they already reduced earnings for market softness. They better not come in with your number.
WD just announced earnings. Specific to HDD - gross margin dropped 5 to 27%. Units dropped to 30M. STX reports next week and we can expect a similar gross margin drop but WD usually has a higher margin and could mean 25-26% for STX and might have postive cash.
This article explains what is happening, not to be accused of spin by the Seagate propaganda spreader on the forum. It includes WD removing support for notebook.
https://www.horizontechnology.com/horizon-september-2018-storage-market-brief/
"HDD market was down 15% Y/Y. WD's numbers look worse but they also got out of notebook and mission critical from what I understand."
Nice spin there 5ntr. Go find Trendfocus breakdown and you will see they still shipped the most notebook for the QTR. They have no where to go but down from here.
No earnings beat no exec multi million dollar bonuses. That's the game. Miss by a penny, bye bye 1000 jobs is easy decision die execs.
Always nice to feel like just a number on a balance sheet sitting between a higher up and a revenue goal, without the benefit of that number being recognized. I've seen people cut that were saving the company several times their salary.
https://www.storagenewsletter.com/2019/01/16/88-to-89-million-hdds-shipped-in-4q18-15-16-y-y-trendfocus/
HDD market was down 15% Y/Y. WD's numbers look worse but they also got out of notebook and mission critical from what I understand.
STX is picking up share but down big Q/Q and Y/Y. I would think revenue would be down at least 10-15% Q/Q because of low nearline numbers. For the industry to be down 15% is huge in one year - Q2 is usually the best quarter of the year so it gets worse from here.
any update?
There is no cohesive Seagate strategy except do layoffs as the company shrinks. Only 1 slide with that printed on it is needed.
WD is transparent and Seagate is not. Don't you think Seagate should be doing damage control?
Is that supposed to be some sort of damage control to what appears to be a cratering business? This thread proves there are WD trolls pounding fake news day in and day out. Go away and figure out and solve your own problems.
Does anyone know why seagate does not do investor days? I found this presentation from WD's investor day. It is very good and communicates its strategy, transparent to its employees. While the stock is down due to its SSD business most would agree it is a short term issue
Here is the presentation if interested:
http://investor.wdc.com/static-files/2e459184-c106-44a7-804f-31d199d4c322
Notebook? See last roadmap
Stx already moved out of notebook long ago.
WD has been moving out of notebook and mission critical since these are dead markets. It does not make sense to a rational business to continue to invest here - but Seagate is sticking with it! It will take a while for these markets to disappear but does not make sense to invest. Keep an eye on data center drives and who is leading there - article says it is down 10% compared to last year and this is a big hit to profit. Seagate has not been first to market in this space for at least 5 years and this is where the money will be made.
Two horse and buggy companies racing to see who will die first