Thailand's Hard Drive Industry Problem

In 2005, Thailand became the world's biggest manufacturer of hard disk drives or HDDs.

As of this writing, they remain the second biggest exporter after China and the largest in Southeast Asia.

Thailand's dominance in this particular industry tends only to be recognized when something happens to damage it. For instance, floods in 2011 that caused a number of worldwide HDD shortages.

But I do think - like with the semiconductor shortage - it is worth studying how this situation came to be. And how, kind of like with Malaysia, Thailand has yet to be able to grow as far and fast beyond that as they would like.

In this video, we will look at how Thailand came to be a leader in the hard drive industry. And the daunting challenges associated with growing beyond that early success.