DVD burning is hot, very
hot. DVD recorders are quickly finding their way to the mainstream consumer and
when it comes to the consumer market for software used to create, or burn
DVDs, the California-based Sonic Solutions company is dominating. We can read this
on Yahoo! News after being tipped by aviationwiz. According to the article Sonic Solutions currently has
a huge market share of 70 percent and many disc drive makers
include Sonic's software in some of their products.
 "We're on the cusp of a fairly rapid ramp in DVD recorder
adoption by consumers, particularly as we go into the holiday season,"
said Michael Kim, an analyst with Roth Capital Partners, which has done
investment-banking business with Sonic. "Sonic Solutions is one of the
most strongly positioned companies in the sector."
Sonic has been profitable for six straight quarters,
and its sales growth has accelerated the last eight. Last quarter, its
earnings per share jumped 167% from the year-earlier quarter to 8 cents,
and sales rose 63% to $ 12 million.
Big Growth
Disc drive makers want to switch from compact disc
recorder drives to DVD recorder drives because there's little profit left
in CD drives. DVD burners can make, record and play CDs. Some drive makers
in Asia already plan to phase out production of CD drives, Doris (Sonic
Chief Executive) says. "The CD recorder-only (products) are going to
get wiped out," he said.
Analysts see parallels between the development of the
DVD recorder market and the CD recorder market. In the CD burner business,
Roxio Inc. faced a lot of the same issues. Roxio was the clear leader, but
its growth stalled when software license fees dried up and its increased
dependence on retail sales didn't pay
off. |
The article adds that earlier this month, sales of Sonic's desktop DVD
creation software, Sonic MyDVD and DVDit, topped the 6 million mark. Would
someone blame me if I said I've never used their software
before?
Source: Yahoo! News
