Seagate sinks sector by saying building factories makes no sense

Published on May 21, 2026 | Translated from Spanish

Seagate CEO Dave Mosley has shaken the storage market with a direct statement: expanding drive production is a mistake. During a technology conference, he argued that building new factories diverts resources and creates oversupply when demand normalizes. The result was immediate: Seagate shares fell 6.9%, dragging Samsung, SK hynix, Sandisk, and Nanya Technology into a wave of selling.

industrial factory interior collapse scene, empty assembly line for hard disk drives half-disassembled, robotic arms frozen mid-motion with disconnected cables dangling, glowing red warning lights on production equipment, financial ticker symbols SEAGATE SAMSUNG SKHYNIX SANDSK NANYA displayed as crashing red arrows on overhead monitors, scattered HDD components and silicon wafers on conveyor belt, dust particles suspended in dim emergency lighting, dramatic shadows across manufacturing machinery, cinematic photorealistic engineering visualization, metallic surfaces with cold blue and amber tones, wide-angle lens emphasizing vast empty space, ultra-detailed industrial textures

The supply dilemma amid uncertain demand 🤔

Mosley argues that the sector must prioritize profitability over volume. In his view, storage demand will stabilize or even decline, making new production capacity a financial burden. Companies like Samsung and SK hynix, which are investing in new plants, now face stock market pressure. The logic is simple: if everyone manufactures more, prices drop and margins shrink. However, the industry needs these chips for servers and data centers.

The paradox of the CEO asking not to build factories 😅

It is curious that the head of Seagate, a company that sells hard drives, is asking to slow down production just when artificial intelligence demands more storage than ever. Perhaps Mosley wants everyone to wait while he sells his stock. Or maybe he knows something the market ignores: that hard drives are as trendy as a floppy disk. Meanwhile, investors rush to sell shares, fearing the next announcement will be that manufacturing screws is also a bad idea.