According to market watcher iSuppli, Western Digital (WD) shipped a record 51.1 million units of HDDs (hard disk drives) in the first quarter of 2010, or 3.2 percent more than it did in Q4 of 2009.  The sterling performance effectively allowed WD to relegate rival Seagate Technology--with its 50.3 million HDDs shipped in the same time period, into second place. (Seagate's own shipment in Q1 was up just by just over 1 percentage point over Q4 of 2009)

Despite losing in terms shipments, Seagate continued to hold the revenue crown with $3.1 billion in income compared to WD's $2.64 billion. Attributing the seeming discrepancy to Seagate's higher stake in the high-end enterprise sector, Fang Zhang, storage systems analyst at iSuppli, elaborated: "In comparison, Western Digital employed a lower-cost business model that translated into reduced average selling prices and less revenue, but higher unit shipment."

For those who need to know, the third placed manufacturer in terms of HDD shipments currently goes to Hitachi Global Storage Technologies with 28.7 million units shipped. Hitachi also gained 13.9 percent in quarter-over-quarter growth, which taken together with WD's gain, which suggests an overall trend towards higher demand for HDDs in 2010.

For more on this story:
- check out this article at eWeek
- check out this article at ChannelWeb 

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