One in five hard drives used in TV recorders

More than one in five hard-disks sold this year will be used in consumer-electronics devices such as set-top-boxes and standalone personal video recorders, according to analyst iSuppli.

It is just one example of the several market shifts that are causing changes in the industry, said lead storage analyst Krishna Chander.

Low-cost, high-capacity, solid-stage storage has squeezed sales on 1in drives, causing at least two companies to switch production to flash drives.

And the trend towards using notebooks rather than sit-up-and-beg PCs in the home has also affected the market, with sales of portable drives expected to be roughly equal to those of desktop models by 2010.

By the same token, sales of external hard drives have become increasingly significant as they are the most convenient way to expand notebook storage.

Total shipments of hard drives increased by 12.2 per cent in the three months up to April, compared with the same period last year, but plunging prices hit revenues, according to the latest iSuppli's storage-market tracker report.

Seagate, which took over Maxtor last year, remains market leader with 34.6 per cent of global shipments; Western Digital is second with 21.5 per cent, Hitachi GST third at 17.2 per cent, with Toshiba at 7.3per cent and Fujitsu at 7.1 per cent.