Capital Equipment Costs to Repair Flooded HDD Factories in Thailand Will be Big

The impact of the October/November monsoon floods in Thailand on many high technology industries have been considerable. Perhaps none have been as hard hit as the HDD industry where major plants for Western Digital and Toshiba were flooded and many major HDD component suppliers were flooded as well. Even non-flooded production facilities such as those of Seagate and Hitachi GST have been shut down for several weeks. Overall about 50% of total hard disk drive assembly capacity is in Thailand with WD's Thailand production representing about 60% of its total HDD output. As a result of this flooding and the long term damage to equipment and facilities in Thailand there will be a shortage of HDDs in December 2011 and throughout 2012. In addition, replacing and repairing capital equipment in the flooded plants will lead to large increases in capital equipment spending through 2012 that will likely approach $1 B.