Global hard disk drive (HDD) market revenue is expected to fall by 12% in 2013 to reach $32.7bn compared to $37.1bn revenue recorded during 2012, according to IHS iSuppli.
The decline in market will mainly be due to the popularity of tablets, smartphones and solid state drives (SSD) while the trend will continue with revenue falling to $32bn in 2014.
IHS storage systems analyst Fang Zhang said that shipments for desktop PCs will slip this year, while notebook sales are under pressure as consumers continue to favor smartphones and tablets.
"The declining price of SSDs also will allow them to take away some share from conventional HDDs," Zhang added.
"However, HDDs will continue to be the dominant form of storage this year, especially as demand for Ultrabooks picks up and hard drives remain essential in business computing,"
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The report reveals that the HDDs have the advantage of the low cost over the SSDs, which is expected to further decrease by 7% this year, while growth in use of HDDs is expected in areas of business including the enterprise space, cloud storage, and big-data analytics.
The launch of a 5-terabyte Helium HDD by Western Digital is expected to give a boost to the company’s prospects in the HDD market, pushing the company to acquire higher market share towards the end of this year, overthrowing Seagate, which had held the crown witha 50% share of the enterprise market last year.
