Hitachi sold its disk drive unit to
Western Digital for the sum of (around) $4.3.bn, causing a 2.18% rise in Hitachi's stock price (its peer Sanyo rose 2.4% on the news). The combination of Hitachi's HDD unit and Western Digital will make WD (hq'ed in California) the company with the largest global market share for hard disk drives (50% according to IDC), the next-in-line being
Seagate STX with 29% market share (they own the Maxtor brand). The remaining share is held by Toshiba and
Samsung.
The acquisition of HGST (Hitachi Global Storage Technologies) gives WD control over a large portfolio of global assets including the Hitachi San Jose
Reseach Center and manufacturing plants in Shenzhen, China (substrate manufacturing is done in Sarawak, Malaysia - substrate (common examples, being aluminium and glass) is what is used to create the platter in the disc drive - the core internals of the disk drive consisting of several layers of platter on a spindle).
Hitachi was set up in 1910 as a product company specializing in electrical engineering. Its first product was an induction motor (used in many household appliances). They went on to produce a bunch of electrical products, including transformers, ammeters and voltmeters. Their involvement in appliances (washing machines and refrigerators) It was founded by Namihei Odaira, an electrical engineering graduate who worked for several engineering companies before founding Hitachi around the age of 36, following his interest and research in developing induction motors.
