Western Digital sells HDD manufacturing to Toshiba

Galaxyneon29 -  WD is required to drop specific assets to receive permission to finalize the acquisition of Hitachi Global Storage Technologies (HGST). The sale will allow Toshiba tomanufacture and sell 3.5-inch hard drives for desktop and consumer electronics applications and will help Toshiba to expand its near-line HDD business.

As part of the deal, WD will take over TSDT Thailand, Toshiba’s Thailand-based HDD production facilities. According to WD, TSDT manufactured hard drives, but was severely impacted by the Thailand flood and has not yet resumed production. Once the manufacturing capability is restored, WD intends to integrate TSDT’s property, facilities and employees in Thailand into its Thailand operations. Financial details of the transaction were not disclosed.

According to IHS iSuppli, Western Digital shipped about 28.5 million hard drives in Q4 of 2011, significantly down from 57.8 million in Q3 2011. Including Hitachi GST’s shipments the company reached 45.7 million drives, which is still behind Seagate (excluding Samsung), which won the quarter with 46.9 million drives.