"...Hitachi and LG Electronics today announced that they have reached an agreement under which the two companies will establish a joint venture company for the development, design and marketing of optical disk drives such as CD and DVD drives.

The new company will combine Hitachi's strengths in the area of DVD-ROM/RAM drive development technology, with LG's world-class competitive capabilities in the area of manufacturing and marketing of CD-ROM and CD-RW drives, with the aim of becoming one of the world's leading vendors of optical disk drives. On November 1, the new company, named Hitachi-LG Data Storage, Inc., will be established in Tokyo, and on December 1, a subsidiary will be established in Korea.

Techno Systems Research Co., Ltd. estimates the worldwide market for optical disk drives as being close to 200 million units, and expects the solid pace of growth to continue, reflecting the expansion of the PC market. At the same time, the market is undergoing a major change in terms of the type of media used, with CD giving way to DVD, and read-only formats to recordable/rewritable types. This is generating increasing international competition in terms of development and cost, which is likely to continue to intensify..."