Demand for hard disk drives (HDD) will continue to be overshadowed by the gloomy outlook for personal computers and
expectations of consumer preference skewed more towards the growing smart phones and tablets (SandT) segment, said Kenanga Research today.

"Companies with high exposure to resilient products such as the SandT and automotive segments tend to be on the recovery forefront," it added in a note today.

Kenanga Research said in this case, Malaysian Pacific Industries Bhd (MPI) is well poised to benefit from the positive spillover effect.

Kenanga Research also maintained its 'neutral' call for the sector due to the lack of an immediate re-rating catalyst, but continued to favour MPI given its strategic product mix.

The research house said although the dwindling HDD demand would partly be cushioned by the Enterprise HDD amidst increasing demand for enterprise or cloud storage, it believed the growth of HDD shipments would likely remain flat in 2014.

This is also in light of the overall lower consumer spending in Desktop HDD and Mobile HDD which command 65 per cent of the total market share for total HDD shipments.-- Bernama