DigTimes reports us that Taiwanese manufacturers of slim type
notebook DVD burners, including Lite-On IT, Quanta Storage and
BenQ, expect growing sales in the second half of this year. The price of a
slim DVD burner is currently around US$ 150, a drop of over 20% from a year
earlier:
 Taiwanese makers, currently lagging behind Japanese and South
Korean competitors such as Matsushita-Kotobuki Electronics (MKE), Toshiba,
NEC, Teac, Ricoh and Hitachi-LG Data Storage (HLDS), began production of
slim DVD burners for notebooks last quarter and are each delivering the
product in small volumes of 5,000-10,000 a month.
With second-tier notebook brands as clients, Taiwanese makers
of slim DVD burners are competing for adoption by top brands such as Dell
and Hewlett-Packard (HP).
According to Lite-On IT, slim DVD burners are mainly used in
high-end notebook models with prices of at least US$ 1,200-1,500 but use
will be extended to notebooks priced below US$ 1,000 as the price level of
burners drops significantly. Shipments of notebooks equipped with slim DVD
burners will rise from four million to five million units (less than 10%
of global sales) in 2003 to 15 million in 2004 (20-30% of global sales),
the company pointed out. |
Source: DigiTimes
