Q1 2024 HDD Industry Update: Shipments and Revenues Rise

The first quarter of 2024 saw significant developments in the hard disk drive (HDD) industry, detailed in the May 2024 Digital Storage Technology Newsletter. Total HDD shipments in Q1 2024 rose by 3.0% compared to Q4 2023, reaching 29.7 million units, while total exabytes shipped increased by approximately 23.2%, totaling 279EB. This growth was driven by increased sales of mass storage HDDs, particularly nearline drives. HDD revenues for the quarter reached $3.94 billion, a 19% increase from the previous quarter, continuing the upward trend in unit and exabyte shipments as well as revenues that began last quarter. Additionally, other memory and storage products showed signs of recovery.

Seagate reported strong financial performance in Q1 2024, with HDD revenue totaling $1.477 billion. Mass Capacity HDDs accounted for 80% of this revenue, with 75% of the company’s products sold directly to OEMs. Seagate shipped a total storage capacity of 99.1EB, with 88.5EB for Mass Capacity and 71.7TB for Nearline HDDs. The average HDD capacity was 8.7TB, with Mass Capacity averaging 12.5TB and legacy averaging 2.5TB. The company shipped approximately 11.4 million units in the quarter, with an average selling price (ASP) of $129.7.

Western Digital also reported strong performance in Q1 2024, with a 41% increase in total HDD exabyte shipments from the prior quarter, estimated at 144.7EB. They shipped 106.7EB of nearline storage and 2.5 million client compute units. Consumer shipments were 1.9 million, and data center (cloud HDD unit shipments) were 7.3 million. The average capacity of their nearline HDDs was about 14.6TB, with an ASP of $145, up from the prior quarter at $122. Cloud storage accounted for about 45% of the company’s revenue in this quarter, compared to 33% in the prior quarter.

Adjusted projections suggest a decline in total HDD unit shipments in the next year due to decreasing legacy HDD applications, but growth in high-capacity nearline HDDs is expected to continue in 2024 and beyond. Both Seagate and Western Digital reported having underutilized capacity that can be used to meet demand. However, they cautioned that significant HDD demand growth in 2024 could exceed this excess capacity, leading to potential shortages in the market. Nonetheless, the industry remains optimistic about future growth opportunities, driven by new technologies and strategies to address evolving market demands.