According to Taiwanese distributors will DVD-ROM
drives (DVD readers) l become cheaper the second half of this year. Lite-On IT,
BenQ, Samsung Electronics and Hitachi-LG Data Storage (HLDS) have all announced
to boost their DVD-ROM production. The DVD-ROM sales will eat into
CD-ROM sales as prices will likely become very close.
 Contract
manufacturing prices for CD-ROM drives had reportedly fallen to US$15 late
in the second quarter of this year from US$17-18 in the first quarter,
while contract prices for DVD-ROM drives declined to about US$26-27 in the
second quarter from US$30 in early 2003, according to sources.
Although the gap between DVD-ROM and
CD-ROM drive prices is still considerably wide, prices for DVD-ROM drives
are expected to drop at much faster rates because of expected reductions
in the cost of key components like chip sets and pick-up heads (PUHs).
Prices for CD-ROMs, on the other hand, have reached a bottom line that is
close to production costs, sources
said. |
Lite-On is with about 300,000-400,000 shipped DVD-ROMs per month
estimated to be one of the top three DVD-ROM makers worldwide along with Samsung
and HLDS. Read more
here.
Source: Digitimes
