Western Digital

The Middle East is now the world's fastest growing market for hard-disk drives with sales expected to grow by 30% this year. But Western Digital is growing even faster than the overall market, and is on target for 50% growth.

This news came as Western Digital announced that it would be opening its new distribution centre in Jebel Ali Free Zone. The facility will allow the local swapping of defective stock - although not many units fail - and this is the first of its kind for a major hard-disk manufacturer in the region.

It adds to the strength of WD's Middle East presence that began with the establishment of an office in Jebel Ali in 1998.

'By investing in this facility we are able to cut our delivery time to distributors significantly,' explains operations director Floris van Tol. 'This means customers will be able to get their products in about one quarter of the time it used to take.'

Western Digital specializes in hard drive solutions and supplies them to many leading PC manufacturers such as HP, but its disk drives also find their way into an increasing number of consumer products these days and this is another big growth area.

Executives are confident they can keep growth in the Middle East rolling at present levels for up to five years, and note that demand for IT outside the UAE is only just beginning to emerge as a force with Saudi Arabia the market with the most potential.

Significantly the new distribution centre in Dubai will serve regional markets as far flung as Turkey, the CIS, Ukraine, Russia, India and Africa, as well as the Levantine and GCC markets. But WD has no plans to set up a manufacturing plant in the region for the time being.

That may change as the regional market for hard-disk drives is exploding at a time when the US and Europe is struggling to achieve 1-5% annual growth. Iraq too is another new emerging market with vast potential for WD, and there seems little doubt that the early seeds sown in the region by this IT giant will reap a golden harvest.