Taiwan's Toshiba Electronic Components Co., Ltd. announced 2021 hard drive shipments by 4% and 61% in Exabyte. The company shipped 54.68 million units this year, equivalent to 187.24 Exabyte. Nearline, Mission Critical, desktop/CE divisions performed well, with shipments and Exabyte all exceeding expectations.
Among them, Nearline hard drives contributed the most, with shipments surging 73% and Exabyte surging 114%. Nearline drives set new shipment records in Q4 2021, with shipments increasing to 2.9 million units in the quarter, for a total of 33.93 Exabytes, up 94% from a year ago. This year, Toshiba leads the industry in annual growth in eight categories and is in a unique position as an HDD company that is announcing shipment growth in 2021.
Ed Burns, research director at IDC, said: "Toshiba continues to lead in the Nearline space, which is reflected in the company's new Nearline unit shipment record for Q4 2021. Toshiba's cutting-edge technologies such as FC-MAMR (Flux Control - Microwave Assisted Magnetic Recording) and MAS-MAMR (Microwave Assisted Switch - Microwave Assisted Magnetic Recording) should further enhance their competitiveness in the nearline hard drive market."
John Chen, vice president of TRENDFOCUS, said: "In challenging market conditions, Toshiba is still able to grow faster than its peers in so many categories. During the year, Toshiba was able to respond to the changing demand situation and provide competitive products to the market. "As some of the ongoing pandemic-related constraints begin to ease, Toshiba's positive momentum is reaching more milestones in 2022."
Yuichi Nanno, President of The Storage Products Division of Toshiba Electronic Components Corporation in Taiwan, said: "Toshiba has been working hard to develop our products and technologies to meet the growing Exabyte demand of customers, and our new technologies such as FC-MAMR (Flux Control - Microwave Assisted Magnetic Recording) and MAS-MAMR (Microwave AssistEd Switch - Microwave Assisted Magnetic Recording) are excellent examples of efforts to drive the development of the next generation of products."