Price war for HDD DVD recorders hits Taiwan market

April 14, 2006

Hmm,
wonder if this might spread around to my neck of the woods? In this report from
over at DigiTimes today, we can see that some fierce competition is beginning to
start brewing between some local manufacturers like Sampo and may bring
prices down.

In the Taiwan market, a few local brands, such as Sampo,
have taken the initiative and lowered the retail prices of their 250GB HDD
(hard disk drive) DVD recorders by 40%, from NT$25,000 (US$769) to
NT$15,000 (US$462). LG has followed suit by reducing the prices of its
250GB models by 38% from NT$29,900 (US$920) to NT$18,500 (US$569),
according to local retail channels.

Under the competitive pressure, Japan brands, including
Pioneer, JVC and Panasonic, have cut the retail prices of 160GB HDD DVD
recorders by 23-26% from NT$25,900-34,900 (US$797-1,074) to
NT$19,900-25,900 (US$612-797), but they have not done so for 250GB models.
In the meantime, other leading local brands, including BenQ, Liteon (made
by Lite-On IT) and Mustek seem to be keeping watch on the market without
committing to any price reductions, as
yet.

The report
goes on to say that brisk sales of LCD and plasma screens due
to overall declining prices is driving the market right now. Not only that,
but they also predict the HDD in the combo units will keep growing from 80-100
GB to 160-250 GB and so will the percentage of DVD recorders that have hard disk
drives. In fact, they say that the sales of set top DVD recorders without hard
drives will decline this year.

Source: DigiTimes