This year, 80 million DVD burners and 10 million DVD recorders will be sold, and each customer will use 40-50 DVD discs a year on average, resulting in an estimated global demand of 3.5-4.5 billion DVD discs in 2005, according to Ritek company spokesman Eric Ai.

For the first quarter of this year, Ritek estimates that its global market share was 26% for DVD+R discs and 33% for DVD+RW discs.

In May, Ritek signed on with Ricoh for OEM production of DVD+R/-R DL (single-sided double-layer) discs, and the company recently started shipments. The monthly shipment volume will increase from one million discs currently to five million discs later this year, Ai indicated.

The OEM price is US$3 per disc, with a gross margin of over 50%, Ai pointed out.

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