Seagate, manufacturer of hard disk drives (HDDs), announced that it would invest another $1.3 billion in the Asia-Pacific region the following year to accelerate its growth in the global media and digital storage arena. In its first step the company has opened its second media manufacturing facility in Singapore—plans for further expansion are in the works, with a third media production plant to be built over the next four years.
Bill Watkins, CEO, Seagate, said, "Singapore has been a key strategic site for Seagate and essentially establishes the country as Seagate's central media manufacturing hub."
The 54,000 sq m third hard disk drive media production plant will be constructed close to the existing one at Woodlands, to facilitate harmonious expansion of Seagate's recording media manufacturing capabilities.
Jerry Glembocki, senior vice president, recording heads and media operations, Seagate, stated, "Media manufacturing is a tremendously complex technology. It takes many, many years to train an engineer or technician to be fully functional. We have that talent here, so the reason we are announcing this expansion is that we had like to leverage that and take advantage of it."
Manufacturing activities are expected to kick off mid-2008. When fully operational, the plant will boast a projected maximum production capacity - or about 45 million recording disks per quarter - that will be at least 50 percent more than the current capacities of its two existing media plants. Initial employee headcount will feature around 1,000 staff, which could be potentially increased to some 3,000 across various engineering, technical and professional positions.
Seagate
