Toshiba will double DVD recorder production ahead of Christmas

July 16, 2003

Toshiba has announced it will double the production of its DVD recorders before Christmas 2003. The company is one of the top sellers of stand-alone DVD players in the United States and is currently preparing to release its first stand-alone DVD recorder in the US. The company expects to be able to ship 100,000 units, while it now has a capacity of 50,000 devices.

Toshiba, along with rivals such as Matsushita Electric Industrial Co. and Pioneer Corp., is shifting from DVD players to DVD recorders to escape price competition with Chinese manufacturers. DVD recorders, which Matsushita Electric expects to outsell videotape recorders by 2006, are capable of recording programs off a TV and storing on an optical disc.

``We have to aim at where it's difficult for Chinese companies to compete with us,'' Goto said. In the U.S., the least expensive DVD players are priced below . The new Toshiba ``RD-XS31'' comes with an 80 gigabyte hard disk and is expected to be sold in stores in the company's home market for around 110,000 yen (7).

The model will be the first DVD recorder in the industry to support multiple formats -- DVD-RW, DVD-R and DVD-RAM for recording data on DVD discs, a feature the company hopes will attract consumers confused by incompatibility issues. Read morehere and discuss this in our Recording Hardware Forum.

Source: Bloomberg.com