Seagate Technology, the world's largest manufacturer of hard disc drives and a leading provider of technology and products to enable people to store, access and manage information, has reported a dramatic turnaround in its financial performance for its second quarter.
Peter Blaauw, managing director of Storgate Africa, the country's leading focussed distributor of storage solutions and one of Seagate's largest business partners in the Europe, Africa and Middle East region, says the turnaround comes as no surprise.
"At this reporting stage last year and again in the wake of the Asian economic crisis towards the end of August, the entire international disc drive industry experienced a major setback and massive shake up.
"Seagate's inherent strengths in the quality of its products, leading-edge technology and its new business model have helped it outstrip all competitors in terms of recovery.
"Not only has Seagate reported a 16 percent increase in revenue for the second quarter, but the corporation also improved its cash position by more than US$340-million in the quarter and now has over US$2-billion in reserves," he says.
Blaauw adds that a measure of Seagate's overall strength and its ability to recover from industry-wide problems was evident in the South African market throughout 1998.
"Seagate was consistently first-to-market with new, innovative technology which enabled us to meet increasing market demand for high-performance drives in ever-expanding capacities. Measures taken by Seagate to improve its supply chain management and production enabled us to offer South African customers a consistent and reliable supply of products throughout the year," says Blaauw.
Working with strong support from Seagate in Europe, Storgate Africa, a member of the listed MB Technologies group, was able to grow its Seagate business by far more than the vendor's own reported growth of 16% for the quarter.
Seagate Technology has reported revenue of US$ 1.8-billion and net income and diluted net income per share of US$ 104-million and US$ 0.42 respectively for the for second quarter to 1 January 1999. This compares to revenue of US$ 1.67-billion, a net income loss of US$ 183-million and net loss per share of US$ 0.75 for the same period last year.
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