Thailand Floods Will Hurt Overall PC Shipments

The devastating effects of the floods in Thailand will possibly be felt worldwide in the PC industry. The floods have affected more than a dozen hard drive manufacturing plants in Thailand which will affect the production of computer systems, causing a price increase.

The PC price rise may be felt during the holiday shopping season, which is traditionally when PC shipments get a boost. Netbooks and entry-level PCs, which are lower priced, will be particularly affected.

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Well, SSDs will need to take this opportunity to make a move here. They probably will not satiate the storage crowd but at least they can get better penetration.

this is what happens when you have all your eggs in on basket. Hope they industries learn their lesson and spread out productions to other countries. As for Thailand i pray that their people will surpass this.

I've never bought a HDD that says made in Thailand. They all say 'Made in China'. I'm smelling opportunists at work here spreading BS.

Well, just checked the manufacture location of 2 hdd's sitting here on my desk.. the Seagate is china, the WD is Thailand.

I read a report the other day that that WD has lost up to 60% of its manufacturing capacity. Others may not be affected as much, however, nearly all of them have parts suppliers for hdd's in the area affected. Therefore, they all are going to be in shorter supply.

The mom&pop brick and motar store I work at has felt the crunch already. Since we do low volume parts purchases, one of my primary vendors is limiting purchase qty's to single drives (for the most part, I got lucky and nabbed one the other day that was limit 3). Another will only sell me a drive if I get enough of the other parts to constitute a whole computer system.


Check this out yourselves... hit newegg, tiger, and others, try to buy more than 1 of most hdd's and they restrict the qty to a single unit type.

Also, prices have climbed already at the vendors. a $35 drive 2 months ago now is near 70 bucks. Yes, the smaller drive sizes are the ones that seem most effected, but the shop I work in rarely sells a new pc with 500 gig or larger drives. Our clients just dont need/want it.

Term-X said:

Well, SSDs will need to take this opportunity to make a move here. They probably will not satiate the storage crowd but at least they can get better penetration.

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I agree. the ssd makers should take this opportunity to lower prices (come on now, you know they dont cost that much to build), and fill some of the holes in the supply chain.

Let's build factories in a country where it always floods and lets make sure the expensive equipment is not in the higher floors, instead lets put them in the basement or first floor. Brilliant, if everyone had such fantastic ideas we would be royally fucked in the world.

Gnasher said:

I've never bought a HDD that says made in Thailand. They all say 'Made in China'. I'm smelling opportunists at work here spreading BS.

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The drives might be assembled in China, but the problem is that components are manufactured in Thailand.

This is just like 10 or so years ago when a plastic factory caught fire in Taiwan, then everyone found out that particular factory had been supplying the materials used for the plastic that housed individual memory chips on DDR modules and prices went through the roof.

ASUS will run out of HDDs at the end of the month. At that point you're going to be seeing prices and shortages you've never seen before on HDDs. If you're a business that regularly buys batches of HDDs, you need to start considering your options right now.

Part of the reason for the reduction in Q4 is down to the flooding in Thailand, as the company has said it only has hard disk drive (HDD) inventory until the end of November.

"Substitutes for HDD are very few, so if the situation persists, not only notebook production will be affected but also desktops, and other component shipments will also drop," Asustek CFO David Chang told Reuters.

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http://www.theregister.co.uk/2011/10/31/small_profit_for_asus/

Hahaha you guys. It's the monsoon season here. Hopefully Skyrim distracts me enough from the floods.

Hmm, how about a crazy idea, lets make them here in the USA. More more electronics here, create jobs for us, instead of importing this is why this country is not doing so well economically. I feel like its the United States of China/Japan/Europe etc etc. I remember Visiontek used to make everything here 100% in the USA. We can do it again. Now we have to depend on Thailand, I say F that and build them here.

MichiganTeddyBear said:

I read a report the other day that that WD has lost up to 60% of its manufacturing capacity.

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^ This. It was reported about 1-2 weeks ago.

T1125P said:

Hmm, how about a crazy idea, lets make them here in the USA. More more electronics here, create jobs for us, instead of importing this is why this country is not doing so well economically. I feel like its the United States of China/Japan/Europe etc etc. I remember Visiontek used to make everything here 100% in the USA. We can do it again. Now we have to depend on Thailand, I say F that and build them here.

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Then the prices wouldn't get lower....Labor costs much more in US than in those countries, a big reason why they aren't made in the US. It's too expensive.

T1125P said:

Now we have to depend on Thailand, I say F that and build them here.

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Great idea. The US never has natural disasters...

Build where it makes sense. If American employees demand $8-10/hr, because it is what "they are accustomed to" then companies are free to move elsewhere.

Everyone benefits from the invisible hand. Thai's get jobs and Americans get $600 laptops. It beats going back 20-25 years when the top of the line PC cost $5-10,000. Only wealthy Americans would be able to afford anything, if everything was manufactured over here under our ridiculous minimum wage laws.

Hummm..... Seagate and WDC control all the market now, so it's gone be like the petroleum, first disaster price climb up.... One think is sure; I will delay my new storage servers a little bit.

I like how the instant this happened disk prices doubled.

Does anyone remember the "resin factory fire" in the early '90s that was used to justify price hikes on RAM?

sleepeeg3 said:

Great idea. The US never has natural disasters...

Build where it makes sense. If American employees demand $8-10/hr, because it is what "they are accustomed to" then companies are free to move elsewhere.

Everyone benefits from the invisible hand. Thai's get jobs and Americans get $600 laptops. It beats going back 20-25 years when the top of the line PC cost $5-10,000. Only wealthy Americans would be able to afford anything, if everything was manufactured over here under our ridiculous minimum wage laws.

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See what we need are freedom camps for freedom labor. For freedom and a glory of the free market.

How dare people expect to not live in poverty and be paid a livable wage for a days work.The audacity of it all! Now, where'd I put my monocle!? I shall miss the evening Zeppelin!

T1125P said:

Hmm, how about a crazy idea, lets make them here in the USA. More more electronics here, create jobs for us, instead of importing this is why this country is not doing so well economically. I feel like its the United States of China/Japan/Europe etc etc. I remember Visiontek used to make everything here 100% in the USA. We can do it again. Now we have to depend on Thailand, I say F that and build them here.

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I say I say, this is a return to the glory days of grand mercantilism. What a load of bullock you've proposed here sir.

Why would you want to produce things that are highly polluting in USA when environmental damage levies will be implemented worldwide and CO2 emission tariff will eventually get beyond that of $40/tonne? Frankly, US, with the ability to control pricing, should not go back into blind manufacturing when its workers are some 4-7 times more productive per capita. Let firms based in the Orient deal with the inevitable emission barrier when selling goods to USA/Europe... US should use the productivity on renewal of energy grid, biotechnology and whatnot.

sleepeeg3 said:

Build where it makes sense. If American employees demand $8-10/hr, because it is what "they are accustomed to" then companies are free to move elsewhere.

Only wealthy Americans would be able to afford anything, if everything was manufactured over here under our ridiculous minimum wage laws.

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Ridiculous minimum wage laws? You gotta be shitting me. My friends laugh at me when I tell them the minimum wage in the US.

I cannot RMA my Coursair GT's because of the floods, I had to accept a credit for them which isnt to bad since I picked up a RevoDrive3X2 no SSD can match it unless you have 4 RAID0 together. I can install Windows 7 in 8 minutes so that will be my choice for storage from now on since I put movie's and anything important on DVD's. The credit also paid for my new MSI X79 BigBang.

Jospeh said:

Ridiculous minimum wage laws? You gotta be shitting me. My friends laugh at me when I tell them the minimum wage in the US.

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Yeah but every swinging Dick and Jane in America needs the following:

High speed internet + cable + VOIP ($100+ month)
Smartphone w/plan ($100/month)
Car + insurance ($50-100 month)
Diet of fast food and takeout ($??? /month)
Amazon Prime/Netflix/needless luxury #64: nickle
Needless luxury #65: dime
... etc


Otherwise they cannot survive.

Actually...

Nokia said:

this is what happens when you have all your eggs in on basket. Hope they industries learn their lesson and spread out productions to other countries. As for Thailand i pray that their people will surpass this.

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xIronCrossx said:

Let's build factories in a country where it always floods and lets make sure the expensive equipment is not in the higher floors, instead lets put them in the basement or first floor. Brilliant, if everyone had such fantastic ideas we would be royally fucked in the world.

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This isn't the first time for something like this. Fiber is hard to get as there is 1 factory that makes the glass used for at least one of the major companies that makes fiber (might have made it for more but i know at least the one used by most telcos) and it was wiped out during the storms in Japan that took out the power plants.

Yossarian22 said:

Yeah but every swinging Dick and Jane in America needs the following:

High speed internet + cable + VOIP ($100+ month)
Smartphone w/plan ($100/month)
Car + insurance ($50-100 month)
Diet of fast food and takeout ($??? /month)
Amazon Prime/Netflix/needless luxury #64: nickle
Needless luxury #65: dime
... etc


Otherwise they cannot survive.

Actually...

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Even without that you are fucked if you are only making min wage. Yes you do need a phone for people to get ahold of you and incase something happens. Don't need the cell phone, they are a waste IMHO. I wouldn't have one if wasn't required for work. Car + insurance, yes you would need that to get to and from work, not every one lives in a city that has transportation. I couldn't get anywhere if I didn't have a car, let alone to a job.

So to live on the absolute min.
$30 - phone (no long distance)
$500 - $700 - place to live (some places might have lower cost, some might be a lot more but these are the prices for low income housing around me in one city and normal prices for a 2 bed apt in another town)
$150 - car related (gas, car insurance, oil changes) assuming you have a old car that is paid off and basic coverage
food we will say food stamps so $0
$150 for gas and electric

so lets say about $1000 a month just for 4 things. so $250 a week, which at 40 hours means you need to bring home $6.25 / hr. so by the time you factor in taxes you are looking at needing about $8 or more (what the more than the current min wage is). at the current rate of $7.25 / hr you are looking at $290 week before taxes. assuming 20% paid in taxes and all the other stuff you are looking at bring home $232 so that is only $928 / month.

I don't know about where you live, but around me in the middle of a fucking corn field in Indiana that wouldn't cut it, so I doubt anyone living in a real place could get by on that. And of course that assumes only 1 person. Don't even think about trying to have a family and only make that.

I just checked 5 drives I have and 4 are Thailand (3x WD 2TB & 1 Seagate 400GB) and 1 is Malaysia (WD 2TB).
I was able to get 2 WD 2TB on Monday at BestBuy for $80 each and that night while I was installing one, one WD 2TB drive in my main rig decided to take a crap.
I was worried that the floods would cause my replacement to be delayed but they sent it 2 day air and I got it Friday.

Exavior said:

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Well, $600/month is probably the lowest one could find. My point was that a lot of unskilled workers here in the US have too many luxuries. Smoking cigarettes and extravagant phones with data plans. It is probably possible for someone to scrape by on minimum wage but they'd have the bare basics, maybe share an apartment with someone else and go halfsies.

The problem so much isn't minimum wage as is inflation + cost of living increases.
However, if you're unskilled, then you are unemployable in this economy we've created.

I was super lucky. Ordered my Barracuda only a few days before this happened. It's nearly $100 more now than it was when I bought it.

Yossarian22 said:

Well, $600/month is probably the lowest one could find. My point was that a lot of unskilled workers here in the US have too many luxuries. Smoking cigarettes and extravagant phones with data plans. It is probably possible for someone to scrape by on minimum wage but they'd have the bare basics, maybe share an apartment with someone else and go halfsies.

The problem so much isn't minimum wage as is inflation + cost of living increases.
However, if you're unskilled, then you are unemployable in this economy we've created.

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I still don't see what any of that has to do with minumage wage being bullshit and to high of a rate for people to be paid. What you said would be true if people could actually afford that stuff. They can't though, if you were only making min wage and actually supporting yourself you wouldn't have the money for the things like that no matter if you wanted them or not. Talking about unskilled workers not finding jobs, that is what this who topic here is about. Somebody claiming that it is bullshit that the people working in a factory have to get min wage as opposed to $1 / hour. Not only that but there are plenty of jobs that only pay min wage, somebody has to work them so it isn't like we can just say that everyone needs to get better jobs as some positions just need to be worked by someone and they need to be able to be able to make a living no matter how basic

sleepeeg3 said:

Build where it makes sense. If American employees demand $8-10/hr, because it is what "they are accustomed to" then companies are free to move elsewhere.

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It is not because that is what they are "accustomed" to, it is because it is necessary to survive in countries where a cup of shitty coffee costs $2.00. You must be one of those republicans that want to bust the unions.

Think about it, in countries like Thailand and China everything is much cheaper so they don't need as high wages. You think someone earning $8.00 an hour in the USA is living comfortably? Think again, that is below the poverty line wages because everything costs so much.

Furthermore; if it wasn't for us in the West paying such high prices many companies would go bust overnight because people in countries like China tend to buy counterfeit products (pirated software, cloned clothing etc.) because they can't afford the high price of the legit products.

Let me get this straight, you want to lower wages but still want us to pay $30,000.00 for a car and $60.00 for a video game, right? News flash: a video game costs $5.00 in China, perhaps even less. See the difference yet?

Oh yea, and lets not forget that employees in Chinese sweat shops live like near slaves. Fuck you,. corporate scum.

I have a few Maxtor HDDs sitting here (very common hard disk drive brand)...

they do not say Thailand, but they do say Singapore.

............also, my Western Digital drive says its made in Malaysia.

These drives are about 5 years old though, so maybe they are now made in Thailand recently?

Yossarian22 said:

Yeah but every swinging Dick and Jane in America needs the following:

High speed internet + cable + VOIP ($100+ month)
Smartphone w/plan ($100/month)
Car + insurance ($50-100 month)
Diet of fast food and takeout ($??? /month)
Amazon Prime/Netflix/needless luxury #64: nickle
Needless luxury #65: dime
... etc


Otherwise they cannot survive.

Actually...

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The problem is what you just said... but that's the problem, the prices... Americans are paying DOUBLE of what I pay in the same country.

I pay $50 for unlimited (cough 5gb cap though) for all my cell phone. 50% less than you.
I pay $75ish for "triple play" cable/TV/phone, and I could even pay less since I could easily use Google Voice for my home phone.

But where do you pay $100 for gas and insurnace? THat is 100% unrealistic for America.... more like $200+, and I drive a compelete SHIT BOX at that price, let alone the insane full coverage+car payment for a lease!