Western Digital and Seagate shares were lower today after Nikkei said Toshiba plans to double its hard-disk drive capacity for AI data centres by fiscal 2027. Western Digital (NASDAQ: WDC) and Seagate (NASDAQ: STX) make hard-disk drives (HDDs), the spinning-disk storage that holds much of the data in those facilities.
Nikkei reportedly said Toshiba will invest about 60bn yen ($380m) in the Philippines to reach that target, with fiscal 2027 meaning the year to March 2027. It would be Toshiba’s first major HDD investment in about five years.
Toshiba has not confirmed the plan. Seagate, Western Digital and Toshiba did not immediately respond to requests for comment.
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The drop looked tied to investor worry over the report. Both stocks had gone into it on a rise: Western Digital closed yesterday at $462.56, up 1.78%, and Seagate at $945.57, up 2.52%.
The concern is about supply. Toshiba reportedly aims to lift its share of the market by capacity from just over 10% to 30% in the medium term, with new lines offering up to 40% more capacity per unit.
That matters because the two incumbents’ pricing power, their ability to hold prices up without losing customers, rests on there being few alternatives. A larger third supplier would put that discipline in question.
Demand for HDDs has strengthened with AI infrastructure because they are cheaper than SSDs, the faster flash-based drives. On timing, the report said Toshiba plans mass production of 65TB-class HDDs by 2030 and 100TB-class drives later.
The stocks have moved differently since the end of June. Western Digital is down about 27.6% from its close of $638.72, while Seagate is down about 2.0% from $965.00 over the same period and up about 15.8% since its close on the 1st of September.
