14 DAY TRIAL // Seagate, one of the leading storage products manufacturers, has recently announced that it expects to see a decrease in sales for this quarter due to the low consumer demand. Such as statement was somewhat to be expected, as several other major companies have already lowered their forecast for the current quarter, while others more are also believed to record a drop in sales, as opposed to initial predictions.
The global low consumer demand has been affecting a series of businesses in the IT industry, and major companies are now expected to lower their revenue forecast for Q4 2008. For this reason, Seagate's recent 8-K filing to the SEC was hardly a surprise, as the company announced lower revenue expectations for the current quarter. “Due to lower demand for its products, a more competitive pricing environment and limited demand visibility, revenue for the current quarter is now expected to be in the range of $2.3-$2.6bn. Consequently, operating results are expected to be below previous expectations communicated on October 22, 2008.”
On October 22, the company announced that it was expecting to see a revenue of $2.85-$3.05bn, which basically was a decline from the company's year-on-year revenue of $3.4bn in the final quarter of last year. In an attempt to maintain sales, Seagate said, “the company is accelerating its on-going plans to rationalize production capacity and improve its overall cost structure.”
In other news, according to a recent article on The Register, Aaron Rakers, a financial analyst at Wachovia, said that Western Digital was likely to be more interested in buying only the enterprise hard disk drive business from Fujitsu, for an estimated price situated in the $300-$350m range. The move is seen as more advantageous for the company, than if Western Digital were to buy Fujitsu's entire hard disk drive business for a suggested price of $600-$650m.