Seagate to ship 1 bln hard drives globally in 5 yrs

New Delhi, June 3 (UNI) World's leading supplier of hard disk drives Seagate Technology today said it expects to ship one billion hard disk drives (HDD) globally within the next five years.

With this, the total number of HDDs shipped globally will go up to two billion.

''It has taken 29 years for Seagate to reach the one billion milestone with the growing role of storage solutions....it will not be difficult to reach the two billion mark,'' Seagate Asia Pacific Managing Director, Ban Seng Teh told reporters here.

Talking about India plans, Mr Teh said, ''the company will invest in increasing sales and support services along with focus on increasing channel penetration and brand presence.'' He, however, did not disclose the investments earmarked for the country.

''India ranks in the Top 5 markets in the emerging markets.

Though, India did not have a significant contribution to the one billion units shipped already, but we expect this to change as we reach the next target,'' Mr Teh said.

Seagate is also focussing on bringing its technologies like Hybrid HDD and SSD to expand its product portfolio. ''We will make an announcement to bring in SSD devices in India in the second half of the year and plan to introduce the product next year,'' Mr Teh told UNI.

Seagate invests one billion dollars annually on R&D in its three centres in the US and Singapore.

Asked about expanding distribution in the country, he said the company has four distributors in the country. ''The present distribution has been doing well and we are enjoying a comfortable position. We would assess the situation and then take a decision,'' he said.

Mr Teh said niche markets like surveillance market and video post-production would contribute to the increasing demand for HDDs in trhe coming years.

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