Dec. 10, 2001

Major optical storage deivice makers in Taiwan are stepping up shipments of rewriteable compact disc drives (CD-RW) and are planning to debut 32X CD-RW and rewriteable digital versatile disc drives (DVD + RW ).

Behavior Tech Computer Corp. will start production of 32x speed CD-RW burners next month. (Burner is an informal name for recorders, only related to the optical disc field).

As Lite-On IT Corp., Taiwan's largest CD drive manufacturer, made efforts to develop CD-RW burners in the first half of this year and began producing a model of 24x speed last quarter, Behavior Tech tried to remain competitive by starting production of CD-RW burners in August and September this year.

Behavior Tech started commercial production of 24x speed CDRW burners early November and plans to offer a more advanced model 32x speed next month. The company's delivery volume increased from 50,000 sets in September to 130,000 last in October, rising to 150,000 in November and expected to reach 200,000 in December.

Another manufacturer, AOpen Inc. recently said that it delivered about 200,000 24x speed CD-RW drives in October, several-fold that in earlier months this year, while monthly shipments were around 60,000 t0 70,000 in summer.

AOpen was also the first Taiwan maker to demonstrate 32x speec CD-RW drives recently, and the company is to release DVD-RW drives by year end. Key components come from Ricoh of Japan at this early stage. The new DVD+RW drive will be priced at about US493 to US$522.

Aopen is also expanding production of optical storage devices at its plants in China, planning to move all of the Lungtan facility in Northern Taiwan to the Zhongshan third plant in Guandong province, South China.

Lite-On IT Corp, Taiwan's largest optical storage device maker, recently said that it delivered about 80,000 CD-RW drives in October, a record monthly high. The company said it would introduce self-developed DVD+RW drives in the third quarter next year.

A senior official of Behavior Tech Computer Corp. pointed out that the aggressive expansion of Taiwan makers into the 32x CD-RW field has increased the pressure on Japanese and South Korean rivals to withdraw from the CD-RW segment and focus on higher-margin products, such as DVD/CD-RW combo drives.

According to the same source, the fast advancement of Taiwan makers into the 32x CD-RW segment has been made possible mainly by the successful development of key chipsets by MediaTek. Inc. However, he added, Taiwan-made 32x CD-RW drives would still face strong competition in overseas markets from makers in Japan and South Korea.

Acer Communications & Multimedia Inc. (formlerly know as Acer Peripherals Inc. ), the island's largest computer peripheral maker and an affiliate of the Acer Group, plans to demonstrate 32x CD-RW drives in the coming few days and will also soon announce plans to develop a 40x or 48x CD-RW drive model.