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WHY THE FLOPPY DISK DRIVE MARKET KEEPS GROWING DESPITE
LOW PRICES
In a world where tens of millions of units of PCs are
shipped, the floppy disk drive continues to be the main removable storage
medium on every PC shipped. It is the most cost-effective, universal
medium of data and program exchange on the market.
Phil Devin, vice president and chief analyst of the computer storage
program at Dataquest says floppy drive makers ship a floppy drive in
every PC made worldwide and 20 million more units for replacement and
upgrades. Devin expects that in 1996 worldwide floppy drive shipments
will reach 92.2 million units.
This represents a 13.5% jump in unit production over last year. Despite
the emergence of CD ROM drives on nearly every PC shipped, the floppy
drive still remains an essential element in every PC thanks to its universal
standard media and relatively low cost. Factory pricing for 1.4 Mbyte
floppy drives are under $20.
Such low unit pricing is what has kept alternative high capacity floppy
drives such as the Zip drive from Iomega Inc. of Roy, Utah from replacing
the 1.4-Mbyte floppy as the main removable storage unit on all PCs.
The most recent FD-3120A, 120 Mbyte drive from O.R. Technology of San
Jose, Calif. can expect the same fate. A small number of high-end systems
needing large capacity removable storage will adopt the drive, but the
majority of mass-produced PCs will not.
However, availability of relatively low-cost, high capacity, high performance
floppy drives is spurring demand for these units. The 1995 Disk/Trend
Report on Removable Storage from Disk/Trend Inc. of Mountain View, Calif.
predicts that unit shipments of these drives will jump from just over
200,000 in 1994 to well over 3 million in 1998.
Phil Devin says that the major vendors of floppy drives have remained
fairly constant each year, with various companies spurting ahead in
market share as new manufacturing capacity or marketing efforts kick
in. TEAC moved into the No. 1 position replacing Mitsumi, a strong second.
TEAC’s market share increased to 19.3%, up from 16.8% in 1994
(see table at top right).
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| Top Five Floppy
Disk Drive Worldwide Shipments (000) |
| Company |
1994
Units |
1994
(%) |
1995
Units |
1994
(%) |
| TEAC |
12,600 |
16.8 |
15,700 |
19.3 |
| Mitsumi |
13,500 |
18 |
14,280 |
17.6 |
| Seiko Epson |
7,270 |
9.7 |
9,100 |
11.2 |
| Panasonic |
7,470 |
9.9 |
8,500 |
10.5 |
| Sony |
8,95 |
11.9 |
8,200 |
10.1 |
| Total Market |
75,200 |
100 |
81,195 |
100 |
| Source: Dataquest (June 1996) |
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