Seagate cuts its quarterly revenue estimate

STORAGE VENDOR Seagate has cut its estimate for third quarter revenue due to a decline in market demand for hard drives.

According to Reuters, analysts on average were expecting revenue of $4.02bn for the quarter ending 30 September, but Seagate said its quarterly revenue is likely to be five to seven percent lower than its previous forecast of $4 billion.

The company expects the total market for hard drives in the quarter to be about 140 million units and said it expects to maintain its 40 to 43 percent market share.

Seagate's main industry rival, Western Digital, which together with Seagate accounts for 90 percent of the hard drive market, also cut its quarterly revenue forecast earlier this month due to the slump in demand for storage hardware.

The news might also have something to do with the recent expansion of cloud storage, with users increasingly looking to store their files in online databases for much cheaper prices per gigabyte compared to the costs of physical storage devices.

Seagate's share price was down one percent after market close on Friday, closing at $30.95. µ