Taiwan's top three optical disc makers expanding DVD-R production capacity

November 24, 2003

According to Digitimes the market for DVD
recordables in 2004 will be about five times the demand of 2003, therefor the
three big Taiwanese media manufacturers will expand their DVD recordable
production capacities. The companies also prefer to switch from CD-Rs to DVD
recordables because the margins on DVD media are much higher.

CMC
Magnetics will raise its monthly production capacity of DVD-R discs from
24 million units last month to 30 million by year-end and 60 million next
year.

Over the same period, Ritek's
monthly capacity is set to increase from 15 million discs to 20 million
discs and then to 30-35 million discs.

Prodisc's will expand monthly
capacity from four million discs in October to nearly 10 million in
November, 15 million by year-end and 20-30 million in
2004.

From the companies, only Prodisc has announced it
will also expand it's CD-R production lines with 30 new lines in China. More
information can be found here.

Source: Digitimes.com