Western Digital (WD) has increased the warranty period of its hard drives in the Middle East by standardizing all WD enterprise drives to five years and WD desktop and notebook drives to three years. The new policy will be applicable to all drives sold through WD’s authorized distributors and manufactured or purchased after June 1, 2005.
“The decision to increase the warranty period of the hard drives reflects WD’s sensitivity to the requirements and interests of its customers in the Middle East,” said Hafeez Khawaja, WD Senior Regional Director, Middle East, Africa and South Asia. “The move will inspire further confidence among WD’s customers in the region, who can be secure in the knowledge that their best-of-the-breed drives now come supported with an extended warranty period.”
WD desktop and notebook hard drives such as the WD Scorpio, WD Caviar, WD Caviar SE and WD Caviar SE16 drive families, manufactured or purchased on June 1, 2005 or later, are now covered by WD’s three-year warranty, while the company’s enterprise drives, including WD Raptor and WD Caviar RE, are now supported with its five-year warranty beginning the same date.
WD’s strong product range and customer friendly policies are driving the company to increased profitability. WD reported revenue of $940 million on shipments of approximately 15.8 million units and net income of $41.2 million for its fourth fiscal quarter ended July 1, 2005, including a previously-announced $19 million charge for settlement of a lawsuit. These results represented strong year-over-year performance, including 26 percent unit growth, 26 percent growth in revenue and 39 percent growth in net income over last year. For the year ended July 1, 2005, WD reported revenue of $3.6 billion and net income of $198.4 million.
“The bulk of the revenues were expectedly contributed by our hard drives which have become preferred items for notebook PCs, enterprise applications and personal and digital video recorders, while maintaining our leadership in the high-volume desktop PC business,” Khawaja said. “WD sales in the Middle East and Africa region saw a solid year-on-year growth of over 50 percent, while the market grew by only 25 percent. This excellent performance by the channel shows the contribution of WD product quality, regional local support and channel relationship to the overall growth.”