Hitachi has done an about turn and decided it won't be selling its struggling hard drive division.

The division was formed when Hitachi bought IBM's disk business in 2002 and has made losses for almost every quarter since. In late 2007 Hitachi was trying to sell the business to private equity group Silver Lake.

But, updating investors today, Hitachi Global Storage Technologies said it would continue to run the business on its own. It will keep on cutting costs, which fell 13 per cent in 2007, and improve its focus - it got out of the 1 and 1.89 inch markets last year.

But the company said it might consider further funding alternatives in the future - it could be that the Silver Lake deal is another victim of the credit crunch as much as a change in strategy.

The firm said it was very serious about "becoming self-sufficient," which is nice.

It made a profit in the second half of 2007 on revenues of $5.56bn and hopes to end 2008 in profit. It hopes to ship 558 million units in 2008 - 12 per cent more than last year. ®

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