Micron: SSD Over-Inventory at OEMs & Channel

Excess Inventory of SSDsDuring Micron Technology‘s quarterly earnings call an interesting tidbit was revealed: PC OEMs and Micron’s sales channel partners are carrying SSD inventory from panic buys they made in response to Thailand’s floods.

It seems that Micron’s OEMs and channel partners expected the HDD shortage that resulted from the floods to create new market opportunities for SSDs.  This is not an uncommon notion, and it was first discussed by The SSD Guy in a blog post early last November with another post added in January.  It seems that the messages of these posts didn’t reach those OEMs.

Micron mentioned this because the company’s SSD sales are likely to slow their growth in the near term as their customers’ inventory is reduced.

Seeking Alpha has a free transcript of Micron’s second quarter FY 2012 earnings call.  Search for “hard drive availability.”

The SSD Guy looks forward to hearing the upcoming conference calls from HDD makers Seagate, Western Digital, and Toshiba, as well as those of numerous important SSD makers.