2011-12-13

Intel slashes Q4 guidance, cites disk drive shortage

LONDON -- Intel Corp has cut its fourth quarterguidance by 6.8% referencing a shortage of hard disk drives (HDDs) as thereason. The shortage is due to disruption from flooding in Thailand. Withoutdisk drives manufacturers cannot build computers and so are cutting orders ofmicroprocessors and memories and building from inventory, which impacts Intel.

Intel, the world's largest chip company, now expectsits fourth-quarter revenue to be $13.7 billion, plus or minus $300 million, onboth a GAAP and non-GAAP basis, lower than the previous expectation of $14.7billion, plus or minus $500 million. Intel is set to announce its Q4 financialresults on January 19, 2012.

The company said it expects hard disk drive supplyshortages to continue into the first quarter, followed by a rebuilding ofmicroprocessor inventories as supplies of hard disk drives recover during thefirst half of 2012.

The disk drive industry has been impacted heavily bycatastrophic flooding that affected Thailand through most of the second half of2011.

Many of the world's hard disk drives are assembledin Thailand, particularly 2.5-inch drives aimed at notebook computers. Thelarger 3.5-inch drives designed to fit in desktop machines are commonlyproduced in Malaysia or mainland China. Both Western Digital and Seagate have been affected by stoppedproduction at Thai manufacturing sites.

Thisstory was originally posted by EETimes.


Intel slashes Q4 guidance, cites disk drive shortage

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