Price economics...
As an economist, a few thoughts on this topic...
First, let's agree that demand for HDD is rather unelastic, meaning no big substitution effects will appear in the short/mid-term.
Desktop users might prefer SSD over HDD for some aspects but price prevents this from happening at the large scale. SSD manufacturer are aware of the ruining race-to-the-bottom of HDD manufacturers which all have low to zero margins and are extremely exposed to the market. Making disks alone is a very unprofitable business. So, SDD manufacturers will do nothing about entering a price war as HDD manufacturers did, consequence is prices will likely stay substantially higher than HDDs.
Now, let's look at the HDD situation. It is a market with a few players left only, everybody at large scale. Before Thailand happened, they were in a race-to-the-bottom, eroding margins and forcing market concentration. Now, this external shock makes prices rice. Demand is unelastic, which means after a short while where comanpies can resist buying new disks, they will be forced to buy disks, and HDD disks, even as prices are high, because:
- the majority of disks is sold to corporations
- it is an illusion to think corporations can exchange HDD for SDD as easily as the desktop user exchanges its laptop for a new one with SDD.
Now, HDD manufacturers realize that they will be able to sell similar quantities of disks at a substantially higher price level. They realize they can make better profit and maintain higher margins. The market will try to force them to reduce prices, but the BIG question is: With propably no new HDD competitors left and SDD adoption not foreseeable in the near future, will the HDD manufacturer oligopoly really enter AGAIN in a race-to-the-bottom where they don't want to be? This external shock is a opportunity for HDD manufacturers more than SDD players to get back to healthy margins and a profitable business...