Western Digital is a data storage pioneer and a leader in the hard drive industry. The company provides cost-effective storage solutions for people and organizations that collect, manage and use digital information. Customers rely on WD hard drives in desktop and notebook computers, mobile and handheld devices, corporate networks and home entertainment applications to keep data secure and close at hand.

The Market

Hard drives are highly sophisticated devices merging magnetic, mechanical and electronic technologies to store information at very high densities. Hard drive technology made possible the development of personal computers, movies-on-demand, digital video recorders and digital music jukeboxes, and has contributed significantly to the popularity of digital cameras. Moreover, all the information on the Internet is stored on hard drives.

According to industry analysts, the $30 billion global hard drive industry is expected to ship 445 million units in 2006. Analysts forecast 14 percent compound annual growth rate in units between 2005 and 2010.

Desktop computing is the largest market for hard drives. In 2006, this segment is anticipated to account for 230 million units, worth $13 billion. The desktop drive market is expected to grow eight percent – about $1 billion – in each of the next several years.

The notebook computer market requires 107 million hard drives a year, worth about $8 billion. It has been growing at about 25 percent a year – the fastest of all computing markets – during the past few years and is expected to continue at that rate for the next few years. This is a major focus for WD as the company increases its penetration there.

Consumer electronics, the newest market for hard drives, is the fastest-growing one overall. Hard drives are used in PDAs, navigation systems, automotive applications and handheld devices that store music, books, news content, movies and television programs. Today’s 81-million-unit market, worth more than $6 billion, is expected to grow to 220 million units in 2010 – a compound annual growth rate of 29 percent.

The Company

WD has proven its ability to respond to changing market needs by delivering to new markets the same quality, reliability and on-time delivery that has made it successful in the computing markets. WD is meeting new needs as the markets seek smaller, high-performance hard drives for a variety of handheld and other consumer electronics products.

For notebook computing, WD Scorpio® hard drives feature high performance and low power consumption. The 5,400 RPM WD Scorpio delivers lightning-fast performance, yet operates with low power consumption for longer system battery life and increased long-term reliability.

WD's enterprise storage offerings are led by WD Raptor®, the world's only 10,000-RPM SATA hard drives. WD Raptor offers the reliability and performance of traditional enterprise SCSI hard drives at much less cost. The WD RE enterprise series delivers very high capacities at 7,200 RPM and meets the demanding 24x7 reliability requirements of enterprise applications. Together, WD Raptor and WD RE offer high performance, reliability and capacity for network attached storage devices, storage area networks, workstations, RAID servers, medical imaging, gaming and video/broadcast applications.

Consumer electronics devices are home to high-capacity, quiet-operating, video-streaming WD drives. Users of personal and digital video recorders want tremendous capacity for and seamless video streaming of their favorite TV shows and movies.

Both home and business users find applications for WD external hard drives and storage systems, which employ USB 2.0 or FireWire® interfaces, or a combination, as well as Ethernet for network storage. With these drives, massive secured data storage is added quickly and easily. The My Book™ family delivers high-performance storage to PC and Macintosh computers, making them ideal for video, music and photo capture and editing, as well as for data backup. The pocket-sized WD Passport® Portable Drive and miniature WD Passport Pocket offer the ultimate in storage convenience and portability.

WD was founded in 1970 and began designing and manufacturing hard drives in 1988. Headquartered in Lake Forest, California, the company employs approximately 27,000 people worldwide. Manufacturing facilities are in California, Malaysia and Thailand; design facilities are in Southern and Northern California and Thailand; and sales offices are maintained around the world. The company’s storage products are marketed to leading systems manufacturers, select resellers and retailers under the Western Digital and WD brand names. WD’s common shares are listed on the New York Stock Exchange under the symbol WDC. WD’s Web site may be found at www.westerndigital.com.

Western Digital, WD Raptor and WD Caviar are registered trademarks, and WD Passport, WD Scorpio, My Book and the WD logo are trademarks of Western Digital Technologies, Inc. All other brand and product names mentioned herein are the property of their respective companies.