MSI to continue own-brand marketing of optical disc drives

July 27, 2004

Yesterday Digitimes reported that MSI was looking to sell off their optical storage
unit, a move that was in line with a corporate restructuring at the company. The
restructuring would start at the end of August. As MSI already sold its
shares of the optical storage product manufacturer AccessTek to
Compal Electronics. The rest of the optical storage unit should have been sold
to either Lite-On IT, Asustek Computer or Foxconn Electronics. Today
Digitimes reports that MSI has denied the news and will continue its
optical storage unit.

Micro-Star International (MSI), a first-tier motherboard
manufacturer, plans to continue marketing optical disc drives (ODDs) under
the MSI brand, according to the company.

However, according to a previous report,
the company may be looking to sell off its optical drive production
facilities. MSI has an existing optical drive factory in Kunshan, Jiangsu
Province (China), which began production in August 2003. The factory
initially had three to four production lines, but capacity can be expanded
to up to 18 lines.

Most (80%) of the MSI drives were sold in China, the company
ships about 70 to 80 thousand units per month according to sources. Read the entire
story over at Digitimes. Discuss MSI optical drives in our Recording
Hardware Forum.

Source: Digitimes.com