Maxtor gets over hard time

Maxtor Corp delivered surprisingly upbeat financials for the third quarter, reporting net income of $6.1 million as opposed to a $31.4 million loss last time. Revenues were up 53 per cent to $599.7 million and shipments grew by 15 per cent to 4.3 million from the second quarter. The disk drive manufacturer is majority-owned by Korea’s Hyundai Electronics Industries which floated Maxtor last year to raise cash after taking it private only two years previously. CEO and president Mike Cannon is a former IBM luminary and he joined Maxtor in 1996, performing a remarkable turnaround at the beleaguered company, focusing single-mindedly on desktop products and key OEM customers like Dell, IBM and Compaq. He said the industry is going through a challenging period but that, “Maxtor distinguished itself by increasing gross margins… and demand for products was strong, especially from our OEM customers.” The company is getting leadership products to market early and into volume production quickly, said Cannon, adding: “Our rigour in maintaining commonality in core technologies across product lines and our flexible, cell-based manufacturing strategy have contributed to our time-to-market and time-to-volume.” Cannon commented that conditions in the desktop hard disk drive industry appeared to improve during the quarter, with company-held and channel inventories down across the industry and pricing pressures easing off towards the end of the quarter. ® Click here for more storage