We believe that the growth
of the notebook in the last five years has been a phenomenal one.
Barring the last two years, which suffered due to the global economic
crisis, the preceding three years has seen more than a 100 percent
YoY growth for notebooks. From only 1,80,000 in 2004-05, now we see
close to two million sales unit in India in the current fiscal year.
The market has not changed
much in terms of the number of players. However, Toshiba, being a
leading manufacturer of HDD technology, has significant advantage
over competing external HDD brands. We noticed that as the consumers
are getting more knowledgeable with the increasing demand for IT
products, there is also an increasing demand for better performance
and reliable products with price being a secondary concern . And, we
claim to fulfill those demands due to our stringent focus on quality
and reliability.
The market for portable
HDDs is measured to be around 1,80,000-2,00,000 per quarter. The
entry of a strong brand like Toshiba in India with a good
partner-base has garnered a share of six to eight percent within the
first quarter (JAS). This has increased since and in the coming year;
we fully expect to challenge the dominant incumbents for top
position. As a socially responsible company, we stress more on
environmental consciousness, and, thus have fully exited the 3.5”
desktop market and only participate in the low-energy consumption
2.5” mobile market. Typically, a desktop drive consumes two to
three times more power than 2.5” HDDs. In doing this, Toshiba
becomes an environmental leader ahead of its time and can expect the
market to follow suit in the coming years.
In fact, the storage
demand will grow with more tablets being sold and more users joining
the 'Cloud'. But, in the area with slower or non existent Internet
connection, the HDD is also the ideal storage medium due to its low
cost/gigabyte ratio. NBPC still grows and somehow SSD price is still
not competitive enough. HDD CAGR in these five year could be more
than 14 percent, as for external HDD market, we expect to have 27
percent over five years. Therefore, we are very confident that the
worldwide market for HDD will continue to grow, although not at the
double digit growth rate in the past. Toshiba is also heavily
investing in R&D to bring out new technologies in the storage
arena, and not just in HDD. We will launch Enterprise Class SSD soon,
as well as a slew of products aimed at the increasing 'Cloud
Computing' industry, that requires high reliability, which is one of
our key selling points.