The market of hard disk drives (HDDs) dropped several percent points in the Q1 of the year due to historically slow quarter. Seagate Technologies has managed to improve its market leading position, however, the announcement of the acquisition by Seagate dropped sales of Maxtor and may catalyze further share declines by the combined company, believes market research firm iSoppli.

Estimations of the firm suggest that global hard drive shipments were 101.7 million units in the first quarter of 2006, up 16.5% annually, but lower by 1.7% sequentially.

“Shipments declined by 1.7% compared to 103.4 million units the fourth quarter of 2005. However, HDD sales typically decrease sequentially in the first quarter following the peak holiday period during the fourth quarter. The stronger-than-expected HDD sales in the first quarter were driven by demand from the mobile-PC and consumer-electronics markets,” said iSuppli analyst Krishna Chander.

Being the top-rated supplier of HDDs, Seagate Technology shipped nearly 29.5 million hard drives in Q1 2006 and managed to increase its market share to 29%, up from 27.9% in the Q4 2005. The acquired Maxtor Corp. shipped about 12.1 million hard disk drives during the seasonally slow quarter and continued to lose market share, as clients uncertain about the future of the product line, the research company suggests. iSuppli believes that only half of 11.9% of Maxtor’s market share will go to Seagate in the second quarter, whereas the remainder will be split between the competing suppliers.

The world’s second largest HDD maker Western Digital Corp. (WDC) also managed to improve its market positions in the Q1 increasing its market share to 18.5%, adding a percentage point of share from 17.5% in the fourth quarter. Western Digital shipped 18.8 million drives, most of them for desktop computers

Hitachi Global Storage Technologies (HGST) maintained its No.3  ranking, having shipped 14.7 million drives. However, the manufacturer lost some ground, with its market share dropping to 14.4% in the first quarter, down 1.8% compared to the fourth quarter.

According to iSuppli, rankings based on units shipped for the HDD manufacturers were unchanged between the Q4 2005 and the Q1 2006. and look as follows:

• Seagate – 29.0%
• Western Digital – 18.5%
• Hitachi – 14.4%
• Maxtor – 11.9%
• Toshiba – 9.3%
• Samsung – 8.6%
• Fujitsu – 6.8%
• Excelstor – 1.2%
• Cornice – 0.4%
• GS Magic – 0%