Friday, March 23, 2007

Calls of Note Part 3

- FTN Midwest notes that on March 19 Barron's recently ran an article about Seagate (NYSE:STX) citing a note published by Prudential regarding STX's quarter end rebate program. Firm says they have differing opinions about how they interpreted the rebate program and their whole take on the current quarter implications for the HDD manufacturers.

Firm believes that the STX rebates are not a new development as they offered similar rebates in the last march quarter. Also, Toshiba and HGST are the most aggressive pricing wise in the channel at this point in time and STX will only be coming in line with the lower price points, not establishing them. Another thing to note is that according to firm's channel contacts, the majority of the drives covered under the rebate program are high capacity drives over 250 GB. This move from STX is more geared towards stimulating high capacity drive demand which has suffered tremendously due vista and other industry conditions rather than gaining market share.

Notablecalls: Not actionable but good to know category.

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