 Philips is the largest DVD recorder chip supplier to Taiwan.
Cirrus Logic, ranked the second, has gained market share by pricing its
integrated MPEG-2 chips up to US$ 5 cheaper than its competitors, sources
said.
FOB (free on board) prices for
digital video recorders (DVRs) offered by Taiwanese companies have dropped
to below US$ 250 recently, while the retail prices have plunged below US$
300 compared to US$ 500 in the first half of this year, according to
sources. Taiwan is expected to ship up to 800,000 DVRs this year,
according to estimates by Taiwanese optical storage
makers.
Sales in the second half of next
year, however, appear to be less optimistic as many Taiwanese chip
suppliers are expected to join the competition during the period, the
international suppliers said.
According to sources, Philips's
monthly DVD recorder chip shipments to Taiwan first surpassed 100,000
units in the second quarter of this year. Cirrus Logic, which started
shipments in June, is estimated to have shipped about 500,000 DVD recorder
chips until the end of November.
Thanks to orders from
Taiwan-based optical storage drive maker Lite-On IT, LSI's monthly DVD
recorder chip shipments to Taiwan also reached 100,000 units early this
quarter, sources said. LSI announced its deal with Lite-On IT in a
press release on December 1. According to sources, Lite-On IT is taking over
10,000 of the chips per month from LSI.
ESS's Taiwan DVD recorder chip
shipments are expected to total 500,000 units during the second half of
this year, sources said. In addition, the company is shipping over 10,000
of the chips to South Korea-based Samsung Electronics per month, sources
said. Samsung has adopted ESS's system-on-chip (SoC) DVD chip for its
DVD-VHS combo players, according to a press release
from ESS on December
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