As the hard drive market will be fully occupied by three major players following Western Digital's acquisition of Hitachi Global Storage Technologies (HGST) and Seagate completes its acquisition of Samsung Electronics' hard drive department, Taiwan-based hard drive component makers are concerned that their ability to negotiate quotes may drop, according to sources from upstream component makers.

Since the number of hard drive makers has shrunk to only three, Taiwan-based hard drive component makers will only have limited options to choose their clients, indicating that their price negotiations may be significantly limited, the sources noted.

However, as Western Digital has almost completed its acquisition of HGST, the sources expect Western Digital to shift component orders to the company's Taiwan-based partners in the future.

In response, Taiwan-based hard drive component maker Min Aik Technology pointed out that its client's acquisition is expected to be completed by the third quarter of 2011 and it is currently seeing no changes in order volumes.