Seagate: June qtr "looks as advertised"

NEW YORK (Reuters) - Seagate Technology STX.N, the world's largest computer disk-drive maker, said on Wednesday that halfway through its current quarter, business is performing in line with expectations.

"Things look as advertised. We have seen no big surprises," Seagate Chief Executive Bill Watkins told the Reuters Global Technology, Media and Telecoms Summit. "If it's a recession, it's pretty good recession for us."

Sales demand is holding up for its products, and a backlog of inventory that some Seagate disk-drive rivals experienced at the end of March cleared up in April, Watkins said in a phone interview.

The company has forecast earnings and revenue growth of better than 10 percent for the June quarter, below previous analysts' expectations. Seagate predicted $2.85 billion to $3.0 billion in revenue, compared with the analysts' consensus view of $3.11 billion, according to Reuters Estimates.

In April, Seagate, whose main competitors include Western Digital Corp (WDC.N: Quote, Profile, Research, Stock Buzz) and Japan's Hitachi Ltd (6501.T: Quote, Profile, Research, Stock Buzz), posted a higher quarterly profit but issued a muted outlook for the quarter ending in June after U.S. consumers trimmed spending in a tough economy.

"I was concerned a month ago," Watkins said. "As we look out, our businesses in Asia and Europe still look strong, our business in the U.S. is not that bad," he said.

He estimated that around 35 to 40 percent of Seagate's business is focused on U.S. end-customers, with the rest international. Most products ship into Asia for manufacturing and a large chunk returns to the U.S. as finished products.

But Watkins cautioned that it was too early to say whether the quarter would be in line with forecasts. "We still have to see in June," he said.

Last month, Seagate forecast fourth-quarter earnings at between 41 cents and 45 cents per share, excluding certain items, far short of the 58 cents a share that analysts had predicted.

(For summit blog: summitnotebook.reuters.com/)

(Reporting by Franklin Paul and Eric Auchard; editing by Jeffrey Benkoe, Phil Berlowitz)