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Glass Memory Disks for
Hard Disk Drives
Business Overview
Electro-Optics Division
Glass Memory Disks for Hard Disk Drives
Fiscal 2010 Business Overview and Results
Hoya develops and manufactures 2.5-inch glass memory disks for
HDDs, which are used mainly in mobile devices such as notebook
PCs and external hard drives. During the fiscal year under review,
the notebook PC market saw strong growth including for netbooks
and low-priced PCs. In the HDD market, some lingering inventory
adjustment effects spilled over from fiscal 2009 into the first
quarter, but from the second quarter onward performance was
strong as production increased and demand surged.
Amid this environment, Hoya's glass disk business maintained a
high operating rate, boosted by strong demand from the second
quarter. As sales volume rose, sales in monetary terms grew year on year despite the effects of
the strong yen and lower prices.
Regarding glass substrate products, in fiscal 2010, Hoya focused on enhancing precision,
including reducing defects and improving the smoothness of disk surfaces, mindful that higher
density will be in even greater demand going forward. At factories in Thailand and the
Philippines, Hoya made progress switching production lines to enable them to handle high-
precision products. In media products, the Company developed high-density-compatible
materials, and worked to reduce costs by improving product quality and productivity.
Outlook for Fiscal 2011
Fiscal 2011 is expected to bring continued growth for the HDD market, mainly in demand for
use in notebook PCs. In order to respond to strong demand growth going forward, Hoya plans
to both reinforce its existing factories and build new manufacturing facilities in Philippines and
Vietnam. The Company will work to improve disk precision to stay in step with the increasing
memory capacity of HDDs. In substrate products, we aim to maintain our No. 1 industry position
in terms of quality, cost, and delivery timeframes.
As of June 30 2010, HOYA completed the agreement regarding the transfer the hard disk
media manufacturing operation and related assets to Western Digital Corporation. Going
forward, HOYA will focus on and allocate its resources to its glass substrates business to
enhance its competitiveness and boost future growth.
In HDD recording media, developers are working on new technologies to increase storage
capacity. At present, perpendicular magnetic recording is being used to improve recording
capacity by aligning the poles of magnetic writing elements perpendicular to the recording
layer. But the industry is now developing new technologies such as discrete track
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