How do they calculate at Seagate in a post-flood situation?

Seagate has updated its financial outlook for the December 2011 and March 2012 quarters. Corporate analysts continue to believe that the difficulties caused by the floods in Thailand will limit the delivery of hard drives for at least another two quarters.

There is a consensus that the industry will gradually regain its strength during 2012, both in terms of production and transportation. Shoulders try to compensate for the deficit in several ways. They will better optimize the delivery structure of the units by reducing the number of parts and the size of the data storage. However, they can only make up for the shortfall in a very modest way. As the Christmas season approaches, demand is expected to significantly exceed supply, so prices are expected to remain stable for the time being.

Seagate can call itself lucky because its factories were not directly damaged by the first floods, however, the shortage of parts had an impact on its production lines, as it was already announced on October 12th. By December, the company had planned to ship approximately 43 million storage devices, which is expected to generate $ 2,8 billion in revenue.

In addition to revenue, operating costs of approximately $ 400 million are expected. As you know, Seagate recently acquired the hard drive division of Samsung, which has been put on sale. The figures for these have fallen short of this forecast, but the acquisition process is expected to be completed before the end of the year.

Seagate, of course, is also constantly working with external suppliers to rebuild the supply chain already built on components. Thanks to this, too, dare to say that by March, the market will improve to a state similar to before the flood. Thus, at the moment, Seagate expects significant growth in shipping in the first quarter of 2012, which could bring in no less than $ 3,75 billion in revenue for their kitchen. However, the March forecasts also do not talk about the additional costs associated with integrating Samsung’s hard drive division. We, the buyers, can only be confident that Seagate’s forecasts aren’t very optimistic, and again in the spring we’ll see friendly price tags next to HDDs that we’ve gotten used to over the summer.