Western Digital partially restores Thailand operations

[Jos]

Western Digital has partially restored production at one of its HDD manufacturing plants in Thailand one week ahead of schedule, according to a press release issued yesterday. The company also raised its revenue outlook for the current quarter as a result, and now expects to make around $1.8 billion in revenue instead of the $1.05 billion to $1.25 billion it previously estimated due to the recent floods in the country.

"Much work remains to be done, but we couldn't be more pleased with the effort and results thus far, including tremendous support from our supply partners and customers," said Western Digital CEO John Coyne. "The passion, perseverance, ingenuity and execution exhibited by the Western Digital team has been extraordinary and enabled us to make substantial progress in partially restoring our operations in Thailand."

Other operations remain under about two feet of water but are expected to be pumped dry within 10 days, after which they must be decontaminated and refurbished. The whole cleanup operation is expected to cost Western Digital somewhere in the region of $50 million, according to The Register. That's on top of other charges related to the flood expected to be between $225 million and $275 million.

Despite the ongoing troubles in Thailand, where the firm makes about 60% of its products, investors were apparently very enthusiastic about the raised outlook as shared jumped 12% to $32.76 in early trading.

The company also said it is working on meeting the European Commission's requirements for its Hitachi GST acquisition but provided no specific details on that topic. Lastly, regarding the hefty $525 million in damages it was recently ordered to pay Seagate, Western Digital said it would be vigorously contesting the decision.

Permalink to story.

https://www.techspot.com/news/46514-western-digital-partially-restores-thailand-operations.html

 

[nik11105]

Well done you! I hope everything turns out for the best for you. I love you products!

 

[Burty117]

Yeah, I've always bought WD, not had any failures as of yet. I hope they successfully contest seagate's fine, would be a shame to see WD struggling

 

[Guest]

Good, now we can get HDDs for christman again without purchasing a **** ton of money

 

[Guest]

Yep just don't buy the drives from newegg, they've been the worst offender at jacking prices higher on drives.

 

[oldikes]

they're doing great. Hopefully, hard drive prices will decrease at least a little before Christmas.

 

[BMfan]

I hope this will help,just heard this week that prices at our suppliers has gone up again,a 500gb is now
more than what a 2tb drive was priced before this happened.

 

[oldikes]

D:
They should dump the inventories now, because by the time they run out production should be back to normal.

 

[princeton]

Burty117 said:
Yeah, I've always bought WD, not had any failures as of yet. I hope they successfully contest seagate's fine, would be a shame to see WD struggling

I hope the unsuccessfully contest it. They stole trade secrets plain and simple.

 

[captaincranky]

Yep just don't buy the drives from newegg, they've been the worst offender at jacking prices higher on drives.

Microcenter for quite a while, sold the Cooler Master Hyper 212 CPU cooler for $19.95. It received rave reviews, and shortly thereafter, Newegg tried jacking the price to $59.95! So yeah, believe it or not, the "Egg's" an old hand at price gouging, at least from time to time.

 

[Guest]

Newegg are the worst bunch of fags in the world when it comes to screwing the customer. I bought a couple video cards from them a few years ago and while the picture of what was included clearly showed a dvi to hdmi connector for each card they were missing from the box. When I posted a bad review for the purchase explaining why newegg deleted it from their site. I wanted to go to their corporate office and throw a brick through their window. **** Newegg!

 

[captainawesome]

@Ts, I just wanted to comment on your website. I think it's really good! I like the way that Product Finder works quite well to find related products.

 

[raybay]

All hard drive brands went way up in price, both laptop and desktop, IDE and SATA... and the distribution channels are such that most suppliers will not have adequate stock until after Christmas... Western Digital, Seagate, Samsung, and Hitachi supplies were all affected.
There are still questions about how long it will take to get back to normal lsupplies of IDE drives.
Way too many unanswered questions remain.

 

[oldikes]

Guest said:
Newegg are the worst bunch of fags in the world when it comes to screwing the customer. I bought a couple video cards from them a few years ago and while the picture of what was included clearly showed a dvi to hdmi connector for each card they were missing from the box. When I posted a bad review for the purchase explaining why newegg deleted it from their site. I wanted to go to their corporate office and throw a brick through their window. **** Newegg!

really? cause ive bought a BUNCH of pc components/ 2 laptops from them, and had not one problem.

 

[Mizzou]

Microcenter for quite a while, sold the Cooler Master Hyper 212 CPU cooler for $19.95. It received rave reviews, and shortly thereafter, Newegg tried jacking the price to $59.95! So yeah, believe it or not, the "Egg's" an old hand at price gouging, at least from time to time.

Since newegg has expanded into all sorts of product lines you really have to watch their prices. Micro Center is carrying the 2500K for $180 while newegg just dropped their price to $220. The price gouging on the disk drives has been outrageous, but then I always like it when on hand inventory sky rockets in price

 

[Guest]

I think maybe you should stop moaning about price increases and think more of the people in Thailand who have lost everything because of this natural disaster, and despite everything are obviously working very hard to get things back to normal as soon as possible.

Sean (UK)

 

[raybay]

This is, ALSO, thinking about them because the 7 hard drive factories there employ a lot of people who desperately need those jobs to help them get back on their feet. Most of the hard drives throughout the world are made in Thailand, but without those wonderful skilled workers we would all suffer.
I have visited the Western Digital and Seagate plants there. The way we help the Thai people the most is get the business of making and selling hard drives going... as I understand what is going on there (since my neighbor's son lives and works there) the plants started up in the past week are still operating at only about 15% of capacity.

Economics and companies go together to

 

[captaincranky]

I think maybe you should stop moaning about price increases and think more of the people in Thailand who have lost everything because of this natural disaster, and despite everything are obviously working very hard to get things back to normal as soon as possible.

Sean (UK)

So, does mean you're going to hop on a ship and help out rebuilding the WD factory, on a free of charge, volunteer basis? Know what I always say, "put your body where your ideals are".

I take it you're not in the market for a HDD at the moment, and so you've chosen to preoccupy yourself with higher moral issues.

But you see, price gouging on current inventory, is a far different issue from the flood. The terms that would apply to raising prices on existing stock would be , "opportunistic" and "carpet bagging". I seriously doubt whether the marketing execs at Newegg are losing sleep over the homeless

 

[Guest]

@captaincranky

No Im not going to ship out there but I did donate money to charity which goes over there to help them.

Also your quite wrong, I just ordered a 1TB WD Passport Essential drive for £108 which were selling for £66 before the tragedy in Thailand.

I don't preoccupy myself with higher issues, but I do know how fortunate I am to live in a country where natural disasters are highly unlikely.

I agree that companies profiteering off the back of this disaster is wrong but the simple answer is don't order anything from them, the prices will soon come back down again.

Sean (UK)