Seagate Technology announced a plan to expand its recording media manufacturing capabilities by setting up its third media plant here. The new plant will be built close to the company’s existing facilities at Woodlands, and the combined operations will supply about 80% of Seagate’s total requirement of recording media, a critical component used in the assembly of its disc drives.

The project includes construction, building and equipment spread over the next four years, and will potentially create 3,000 jobs when the plant is fully operational and running at maximum production capacity. Manufacturing activities are expected to start in 2008.

“Singapore has been a key strategic site for Seagate and this announcement essentially establishes the country as Seagate’s central media manufacturing hub,” said Bill Watkins, CEO of Seagate. “We will continue to make strategic investments in Singapore by leveraging established infrastructure and tapping the exceptional pool of technological and human resources this island-nation has to offer. We are also pleased to extend our mutually beneficial partnership with the Singapore government, which has shown tremendous support during the time that we have operated here.”

Locating the expanded operations close to its existing Woodlands facilities allows the company to leverage technical expertise and resources, and efficiently feed its regional disc drive assembly operations.

The Woodlands extension will see the construction of a new three-story manufacturing block with a built-up area of about 54,000 square meters, housing Seagate’s state-of-the-art equipment and new-generation technologies, including perpendicular recording capabilities.

Initially, the new facility is expected to require an increase in staffing of nearly 1,000 employees. The work force could potentially grow to 3,000 when the plant is operating at maximum production capacity depending on the global requirement for recording media.

“The new facilities will make Seagate in Singapore the world’s single largest producer of recording media,” said Jerry Glembocki, senior vice president of Seagate’s global recording heads and media operations.

In 2005, Singapore accounted for 25 percent of the world market share for disc media, according to the Singapore Economic Development Board. With Seagate’s new investment into their third media plant, Singapore’s lead as a key manufacturing location for hard disc media globally will widen and its ecosystem for hard disk drives strengthened considerably.

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