[ 3rd Quarter of fiscal 2008 Performance Briefing ]HDD Head Business Outlook

Mr. Atsuo Kobayashi
General Manager
Data Storage & Thin Film Technology Components Business Group

I'm Atsuo Kobayashi, General Manager of Data Storage & Thin Film Technology Components Business Group. I would like to report on this group's sales for the first half and our forecasts for the second half and full year. Sales in the first half were ¥156.9 billion, and third-quarter sales were ¥89.9 billion, as was reported earlier. For the fourth quarter, we are forecasting sales of ¥73.5 billion. That means we are now projecting second-half sales of ¥163.4 billion, which is 3% higher than our previous forecast. For the full year, we have raised our forecast from ¥315.9 billion to ¥320.4 billion.

Next, I'd like to look at HDD head demand and TDK's market share. Compared with our previous forecast, we are now projecting total HDD demand in excess of 500 million units. Our forecast is for total HDD demand of 513 million units. Our forecast for the average number of heads per HDD is 3.0 and we expect HGA demand to increase to 1,521 million units. In terms of market share, we have lowered our forecast by 1 percentage point from 33% to 32%.

Regarding the schedule for launching new products, we are making progress with 500GB/P heads for 3.5-inch HDDs toward the commencement of mass production this year. In products for 2.5-inch HDDs, we are shifting from 160GB/P heads to 250GB/P heads. With products for 1.8-inch HDDs, we will soon launch 120GB/P products.

Finally, I would like to comment on the acquisition of assets from Alps Electric Co., Ltd. We can report that we have received approval from the regulatory authorities in all countries concerned and that most of the assets related to this deal were transferred to TDK in January this year.