Thai Flooding Hits Dell Could Impact All PC Manufacturers

Post by Sharat | November 22, 2011 | Dell Computers, Dell News | Comment

Computer manufacturing giant Dell, which trades in the country as Dell Computers Australia has warned that the flooding in Thailand is likely to mean the supply of its hard rives which it used to manufacture with are likely to tighten.

“Dell is continuing to actively monitor the Thailand flooding situation, and while we expect Hard Disk Drive supply to be limited in the next several weeks, we are working closely with our HDD suppliers to mitigate any customer impact,” the company told AFP in an email.

“We have teams engaging daily with affected suppliers regarding this industry situation in order to most effectively and efficiently manage our HDD supply chain.”

Analysts polled, say they believe that all manufacturers of personal computers could end up feeling the effects of the flooding which has struck Thailand and continued unabated for the last two months, shutting down many of the Thai factories that manufacture HDD’s, and who supply a whopping 40 per cent of the global market for the crucial memory storage device.

IDC reckons that the shut down could result in a 20 per cent cut in global PC shipments during the first quarter of 2012 as a worst case scenario,

“Even the largest vendors are expected to face HDD shortages, particularly for portable PCs where the market is more consolidated,” said Loren Loverde of IDC.

IHS iSuppli, another industry analyst says it believes that the flooding would result in a cut of 51 million HDD shipment units, down to 125 million units.

“Prices for HDDs have already begun to move higher on the anticipation of shortages, and it is likely that prices will remain elevated, possibly by more than 10 percent, for several quarters to come,” IHS said.