Aug 15, 2000

In order to avoid price competition in CD-Rs, Taiwan's major manufactures such as Ritek Corp. and CMC Magnetics Corp. will further increase the production volume of CD-RW products. They will also try to avoid market oversupply, industry sources said.

Several major CD-R manufacturers in Taiwan have reduced their overall production volumes over the past few months, thus avoiding a continued price decline in CD-R products. Some ten small and medium CD-R makers are now suspending their production in this regard, due to the comparably high production costs but low profit margins, industry sources said.

It is estimated that about only ten CD-R manufacturers in Taiwan will survive eventually. A few local manufacturers are optimistic that the price of locally made CD-Rs will stop dropping and climb considerably by the end of the year.

CMC expects its CD-RW production volume will expand to 15 million units per month by the end of the year. With a total of some 20 production lines, CMC claims that the firm is the world's largest CD-RW manufacturer.

Meanwhile, Ritek employs a total of 18 CD-RW production lines. The firm expects such production lines will total 20 by the end of the year, with production volume of 10 million units per month.