Hitachi Ltd. (6501.TO) said Monday that the transfer of its hard disk drive business to Western Digital Corp. (WDC) will be delayed as the U.S. company is still working on acquiring regulatory approval from the European Commission and other authorities.

Hitachi said that the deal, which had been expected to be completed in the October-December quarter, is now expected to be finalized by March 2012.

In March, Western Digital agreed to buy Hitachi's disk-drive business for about $4.3 billion in cash and stock, in a deal that will boost Western Digital's share of global disk-drive shipments to nearly 50%.

-Tokyo Bureau, Dow Jones Newswires; +81-3-6269-2770