On June 15th, there was a 13-minute power outage in Yokkaichi, Japan, which caused a loss of up to $339 million to Western Digital and Toshiba's joint venture storage company's wafer and manufacturing equipment. In late June, Western Digital said the accident would reduce its NAND flash wafer supply by 6 EB in the third quarter, accounting for about half of the quarter's supply. Toshiba also confirmed the damage of wafers and equipment, but did not give a detailed explanation. However, on Wednesday, Western Digital indicated that TMC has successfully restored the normal operation of almost all joint production lines.
Western Digital CEO Steve Milligan said that almost all of the capacity of the four-day city has been re-launched. This portion of the wafer capacity that was accidentally lost will be replenished in the quarter ending September. It is estimated that losses will reach US$1.7-1.9 billion in the third quarter of this year, and losses in the fourth quarter will reach US$154 million, totaling around US$315-339 million.
As a private company, Toshiba Memory did not disclose the specific impact of the incident. But if the company loses the same amount of wafers and has to regain its capacity, the amount of the loss will be similar to Western Digital, around $315-339 million.
