Demand for optical storage, CDs and DVDs, is on the decline. This is bad news for companies like Imation (IMN) that derive a majority of their sales from these products. With the release of the New Apple Mac Minis, optical storage demand takes another hit.
With the launch of the new Mac minis this morning, Apple declared the optical disc obsolete.
“Mac mini is designed without an optical disc drive,” the company said in the device’s promotional materials. “Because these days, you don’t need one.”
The Mac Mini release and the article from All Things D are a few weeks old but I held back on discussing them while I waited for Imation (IMN) to release its most recent quarterly earnings.
Sales for optical storage continue to deteriorate. The image below shows the 3 and 6 month year-over-year decline in revenue.
Chart is from Imation’s 2nd Quarter 10-Q filing.
Again, the decline is being led by Imation’s large exposure to optical storage as the image below highlights.
Chart is from Imations 2nd Quarter 10-Q filing.
Data storage is getting cheaper by the day and the emergence of Cloud Computing is changing the nature of how data is accessed. The old ways of storing and accessing data are losing ground everyday in the new data revolution.
Related posts:
