WD reported their fiscal yearly results this week and overall the numbers looked pretty similar to most other quarters/years that get reported in the HDD business. The HDD business is an oligopoly that is impossible to penetrate by a new entrant. Thus, WD and its fully owned HGST division, take their near half of the business, Seagate takes their big share and Toshiba takes what's left over. Where the market is different though is in the enterprise SSD business where WD has invested substantially over the last year. Here, HGST shows significant growth as they hold a strong position in the enterprise SAS SSD segment, driving in over $500 million in revenue in fiscal 2014.
WD reported their fiscal yearly results this week and overall the numbers looked pretty similar to most other quarters/years that get reported in the HDD business. The HDD business is an oligopoly that is impossible to penetrate by a new entrant. Thus, WD and its fully owned HGST division, take their near half of the business, Seagate takes their big share and Toshiba takes what's left over. Where the market is different though is in the enterprise SSD business where WD has invested substantially over the last year. Here, HGST shows significant growth as they hold a strong position in the enterprise SAS SSD segment, driving in over $500 million in revenue in fiscal 2014.
Year over year this growth amounts to roughly 43% on a revenue basis and as a whole, 3.4% of top-line revenue for WD. In their last fiscal year, enterprise SSDs made up 2.3% of the top line revenue. WD has certainly added quite a bit, picking up sTec, Virident and Velobit in the process, but none of those acquisitions came with large revenue streams. The growth is almost entirely driven by HGST's SAS SSDs, which were also refreshed this week with capacities up to 1.6TB and three flavors based on endurance needs.
We routinely ask out loud about WD and Seagate's investments in NAND production as the growth in the market puts routine strain on supply. HGST, which uses Intel NAND due to a long-standing technology relationship, single-sources NAND now, but eventually that may have to change. For now though, HGST is seemingly on the right path as they help drive the future of WD's storage business in the enterprise.
